Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“‘An ex-Ward murdered two people in broad daylight’?!” Vista exclaimed incredulously, dropped the newspaper on the table and threw up her hands. “What the fuck is this?!”

Taylor, who was sitting across from her, and Lisa, who was standing at the electric stove in her brand-new apron that said “Stress is better than diet”, looked at each other thoughtfully.

“And here I was thinking that now there will be two people in our team who understand how the news media work.” Lisa smirked. “Surprise: they pursue their own goals, and the main one is to attract more readers – for that they are ready to do anything. That’s just a great example for you, my dear ‘ex-Ward’.”

“And here I was thinking that with you I could just forget about trying to understand this,” Vista muttered, crossing her arms over her chest. “Although it’s not like I understood anything… They were telling me what to do, so I did it. And at the same time I was… mumbling something sourly about the fact that all this is fucking nonsense and there are more important things to do. Day after day, year after year.” She sighed and looked up at the ceiling.

“Undersiders don’t have photo shoots and press conferences,” Taylor said. “That’s a plus.”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“Well, besides the ones that you want to arrange yourself. Technically, your video was something like that.”

“I guess.” Vista shrugged her shoulders. “But at least I didn’t have to listen to twenty stupid questions, fifteen of which I have to answer because I’m a hero and a member of the PRT, but I can’t answer ten of them because I’m... a hero and a member of the PRT, and therefore no one will approve of my answers.” Vista noticeably grimaced, remembering the past. 

“Huh, I can imagine.” Lisa chuckled. “What kind of coffee do you want today, Tay?”

“Black,” Taylor replied without taking her eyes off her book.

Lisa turned her head towards her, and, squinting a little, studied her profile for a few seconds.

“Vanilla latte with extra cream and sugar, got it.” She said confidently and walked up to the coffee machine.

Taylor rolled her eyes, but stayed silent. A small smile graced her lips.

It was incredibly difficult for Vista to wrap her head around this whole picture of more or less familiar home comfort, when it was two of the scariest villains in the city. It was hard to imagine even just Skitter, with whom she had already had a chance to talk not only about fighting and battle plans, in this situation. Naturally, Vista herself didn’t behave exactly the same way at the school as she did on patrol, but... it seemed to her that the difference was too big. In addition, over the past year, her personal reactions to events when she was wearing her costume and when she wasn’t have become dangerously similar.

Maybe this was how a normal life should’ve looked like – as much as it was possible in their circumstances. Even so, Vista was rather sure that it was Skitter and Tattletale, who seemed very fond of playing these roles of ordinary people… Though it wasn’t her place to judge them. At least at the moment they looked like most capes on the outside, having two identities for different purposes and all that, unlike… Well.

And yet it was extremely weird to hear the dialogue about morning coffee in those voices that more than once threatened the heroes with an enormous swarm of insects and mocked them with their most unpleasant secrets. But that was what she signed up for, right? Made the decision. Maybe something like this was actually the thing Lily was talking about…

“Yes-yes, I bought us oatmeal cookies,” Lisa murmured, reaching for the handle of the drawer above her and allowing the spider that appeared from the gap to move to her shoulder.

Yeah, it will definitely take some time for me to get used to this.

“Actually, it could have been much worse,” Taylor said thoughtfully. “At least, the article says who you killed two people for. Those who bother to read beyond the headline will understand. Those who won’t… Should you give a damn about their opinion?”

Vista blinked in surprise, knowing for sure that Taylor hadn’t looked up from her book in the last ten minutes. Of course, the PRT knew some things about how Skitter could easily control parts of her swarm in different ways at the same time, but such an eerily simple demonstration was much more impressive.

Probably, such a level of multitasking would be the only chance for me to really catch up with the list of media from... Jill... Damn it.

“...I don’t know.” Vista pursed her lips. “I’d rather have everyone see me for who I am now. Naive, I know. Besides, sure, there was Panacea, but… It doesn’t mean that I would just leave some ordinary person in such a situation. I mean, it was Panacea, yes, but…”

“Come on, no need to think up excuses,” Lisa said with a hint of sarcasm. “It’s fine, all people evaluate everyone else around them. Merely a fact of life. Even if Panacea was just Amy Dallon, you’d still probably decide to do this because you wouldn’t want to see your friend die.”

“Maybe,” Vista muttered. “But in that particular situation, I would hardly have changed my mind whatever the case. An innocent person’s life is worth two lives of guilty ones,” she said a little more quietly. “It is worth exactly the number of criminals that... is present in the situation.”

“Look at her!” Vista flinched when two cool hands quickly hugged her from behind. “Cold like the morning November wind outside the window,” Aisha said in a pretentious voice. “I like it!”

She stood there for a few seconds before pulling away from Vista and sitting down on a chair next to her. Vista shrugged uncertainly, but did not respond in any way – her reactions to the unexpected physical contact still left much to be desired, and Aisha had already got at least one accidental bruise because of this, although, apparently, she was not going to give up. And it wasn’t that Vista was displeased by it… It was unusual, if anything.

“One can only wonder how she even lasted more than a week in the children hero platoon.” Lisa said.

“It’s very easy to find reasons over and over again to keep the worldview that is – was – familiar exactly the same,” Vista murmured, sighing.

“It’s very easy to think that people who should have all the answers and who are responsible do actually have answers and are responsible,” Taylor replied in the same tone, frowning sadly.

“Huh. It turns out that now I understand better how it all works.” Vista snorted. “Or am I just thinking that again… Like I used to.” Back when I still believed that beautiful words and high moral principles were enough to handle anything. “Well, at least now the news about me will be more honest, I guess.”

“Hard to argue with that. The news about you will surely be viewed more seriously,” Taylor said in a calm voice. “After all, regardless of the reasons, the fact that you murdered two people is a very serious thing. For most people, at least.”

“You think so?”

“I would say, ‘oh, my sweet summer child,’” Lisa chuckled, “but this is more of the opposite case. Okay, let me put things into perspective: you’ve killed... three people this year, right? Apart from, heh, assists. And all the other Wards in all the states killed... like, about the same number in the same amount of time – and I’m not even really downplaying that.”

“...Bullshit.”

Considering how many tragedies happen in the United States alone every week…

“It sounds more like our dear and beloved city,” Taylor said with a barely perceptible note of bitterness. “Of course, we don’t travel much, but we have more than enough information. I guarantee you that most of the Wards have not seen normal villains up close, although for obvious reasons, most villains do not go near them as well. Aside from psychos like Bakuda or the Nine.”

“Or Hookwolf,” Vista added thoughtfully, reflexively rubbing her chest. “Hmm. I... never thought about it that way. I was offered therapy after Shatterbird, of course, but, like, it was just the usual stuff, usual shrink…”

“Oh, I can’t even imagine why they didn’t talk to you about this,” Taylor rolled her eyes.

“Well…” Aisha tapped her cheek. “Of course, I don’t know this new and interesting Undersider Vista very well, but I’d think that such conversations wouldn’t change anything for her?” she finished not too confidently.

Vista caught Aisha’s look – completely ordinary one, but at the same time a little sadder than usual.

“That’s not the point,” Lisa said seriously. “The point is, peopl- capes need to have the ability to choose: whether to train in a fucking combat zone or not. A choice for everyone. For all the Wards, you know, for starters. And so that the worldview of all those capes could not be broken because of a single event, whatever it might be.” She smiled wryly.

The Empire’s attack wasn't the only event, Tattletale. Not the only one at all. But it used to be more comfortable for me not to pay attention to all that…

“But if you’ve already decided to become a hero…” Vista lowered her gaze. “Is there a difference? Would they want to use this choice?”

After all, this is our job. I definitely wouldn’t have reacted like that if… Fine, yes, even if my situation wasn’t exactly about that, that’s how I reacted. I wished I had the opportunity to fight, not the opportunity to choose whether to fight or not.

However, I’m not a very good case for such questions... I am really not.  

I do what I was taught, even if their intentions in my training were a little different. I go out to risk my life because that’s who I am. Who I’ve become. Who Missy Biron wouldn’t be if this world was a little better.

I may not have said it outright, but I suspect Miss Militia thought I was blaming them. About who I’ve become, about... who I haven’t become. And maybe it’s true. I was just so angry about it all…

Still angry. At least Lily and Aisha are trying to give me reasons to be angry at them and their attempts to help me instead.

“Being a hero means a lot of things, like you said,” Taylor said firmly. “Among other things, it means making that choice – and showing those who see only the other side of it that it exists. Even if my choice,” she lowered her voice, “became different, that’s why I came to it in the first place. Not only because of my own beliefs. Even if it brought disappointment later, too.”

Vista remained silent, not quite sure about this argument.

“And also – no.” Vista was startled by a cup of coffee that appeared in front of her. “You don’t just do what you were taught, because, honestly, you weren’t taught much.” Lisa rolled her eyes. “Rather, they didn’t pay attention to what you were seeing and what you’re teaching yourself. And you’re also much more than that, so let’s go without losing too much self-esteem this early in the morning, capiche?”

Vista met her gaze for a moment and immediately looked away, not wanting to show the Thinker more than she needed to. She took the cup – for the first time in a long, long time a real one, and not a plastic cup – in both hands, mentally smiling at the pleasant warmth spreading through her fingers, and pulled it closer to her.

I can’t imagine how they all talk with Tattletale, knowing that there’s probably nothing they can do to hide things from her. During the conversation itself, at the very least.

But even so, this damn apartment of theirs feels like home much more than my official home has for many, many months. Strange. Stupid, maybe. But probably… I don’t mind.

At least, I can probably trust that, no matter how caustically and painfully it would be formulated by the same Tattletale, the Undersiders will tell me to my face if they want to get rid of me. I can handle that.

The coffee tasted... unexpectedly delicious. Not the kind she usually bought at various cafes or the vending machine at headquarters. It was... nice. 

Vista never liked any charity events and other gatherings, being afraid that she would ruin everything with some sort of her mistake. Once upon a time, she was seriously worried about this… Then she began to worry that, regardless of her opinion, her superiors would be unhappy if something did not go the way they wanted, and it would still affect her. And, maybe, the drinks there were of higher quality than this coffee, which, for example, Tattletale, as Vista assumed, drank day and night, but she could never feel their taste on her tongue while she was constantly busy playing the given role and looking around.

It was definitely stupid. And naive. And disrespectful to her friends. But Vista could not get rid of the thought that here, in the apartment of two supervillains, bought with money obtained through less than legal means, she felt... comfortable. Certainly more comfortable than all the other times in her life when she was about to go on patrol – at least her current colleagues trusted her enough to let her leave alone and when she wanted. 

“Greetings, citizens of Brockton Bay. Some of you have probably heard of me. My name is Vista, and I am one of the Wards here, in the Protectorate East-North-East. I was, that is. And before the rumors spread, before different people invent different stories for you, I will tell you this with complete honesty: I left the PRT and joined the Undersiders. Yes, the villains, yes, of my own free will. For one and only reason: I am no longer able to believe that the PRT is the greatest hope for the best for our city...”

Assault was not at all surprised that he – and the other members of their Protectorate – were called to an unexpected meeting upon arrival at the headquarters. This actually was easy to predict. After all, it wasn’t every day, even in their city, that a Ward willingly deserted from the PRT. Last night, he joked that, apparently, in Brockton Bay the timer for that was set for about six months, but his beloved did not appreciate the joke at all.

“...Probably many of us heard one of Legend’s favorite phrases. The one about how all of us should never turn the other way when something’s happening. I have always believed that this is a very decent moral principle. And I made my choice precisely because I continue to believe it is right, to believe in my own ability to change things. If being a villain will allow me to save one more person than if I was a hero, then it’s worth it. Nothing more, nothing less...”

He really wondered if there was anyone among them who hadn’t heard the news last night – and hadn’t seen Vista’s video, of course. However, he didn’t mind listening to it again. And it would not hurt anyone, in his humble opinion. Regardless of whether Vista’s words seemed offensive or unfair.

“...I am fourteen years old. And I spent three years of my life – my whole actual life – as a Ward. A hero. I sacrificed my childhood, sacrificed everything I could for the sake of this responsibility that a hero must bear. I know that my efforts will never be enough – but I have to try. And I’m tired of seeing more people than just villains trying to thwart my efforts. I don’t care how right and comfortable this collar made of red tape and bureaucracy is for me or others when tragedies happen right outside our windows!”

When Assault heard this part for the first time, he wanted to punch himself in the jaw: after all, he, like everyone else, took Vista’s efforts and actions pretty much for granted, mostly forgetting that she was a Ward, a really young one at that. And it didn’t matter that she herself has always been unhappy with this division. Well, at least he treated her as an equal on and off the battlefield, unlike some – which was actually very simple.

“...Our duty is to protect people! Ordinary people! All the people who need help and whose lives are at risk! But sometimes we can’t even handle that… Our world already suffers from too many problems for us to try and take on more! But we worry about proper morality and politics, about how much positive response the new press conference will get in the media and how exactly our focus groups will rate the new stylized fridge magnets!”

It was a little funny: their team consisted of quite different people in every sense of the word, yet most often they all reacted about the same way to events that required a meeting, whether it was conflicts in the city, new changes in cape laws or future activities. But now…

“...Maybe I’m terribly naive, but I refuse to think that without all these big and beautiful gestures people will stop trusting us! This is an attempt to convince, but not to be honest, when those whom you labeled as villains are just honest in their goals and in their sins! Maybe a lot fewer people would be satisfied with the fact that the Undersiders sometimes hang rapists and murderers without trial, if there were more better examples shown by us! Maybe three days ago a lot fewer graves would’ve appeared in local cemeteries if only you had listened to these terrible villains, who somehow lack the luxury of ignorance!”

Aegis was a great guy and a good, experienced hero, but he clearly wasn’t very good at keeping a poker face, at least outside of battles, judging by his eyes full of worry. Miss Militia, to Assault’s surprise, did not take her eyes off the screen and hardly even blinked, which was not a usual sign of her concentration.

“...Yes, nobody is good enough to save everyone, regardless of powers, intentions or sides. On all our hands is the blood of those whom we could not save. But unlike you heroes, I will never say again that I did not have the opportunity to save someone. I won’t say that I’m so fucking sorry when we made the decision to sacrifice a few for the chance to save the others. Perhaps – most likely – I will have to sacrifice someone other than myself again one day. But then… Then I’ll say it straight and will look into the eyes of all those people whose relatives and friends died because I wasn’t good enough. No more acceptable losses, which are always present in our plans, even if no one says these words out loud. Enough. I believe that we deserve better...”

Assault barely refrained from raising his eyebrows when he saw Triumph, albeit with a completely straight face, nodding at some of Vista’s words, while the rest mostly... just looked serious as usual.

“You may call me a traitor and a villain. You will. You might even be right. But I have made a choice, and I will not back down, as always. I did not back down against bandits and terrorists, neo-Nazis and mercenaries, villains and monsters like the Slaughterhouse Nine. Perhaps if I had known what was waiting for me when I was just an eleven-year-old girl, I would never have even approached the PRT building – but I didn’t know. So I taught myself to be someone who deserved to work in that building, because I believed it to be the best thing I could ever achieve. I believed in those big and fancy ideals with all my heart, and I was ready to sacrifice everything to prove that, even when the guilt was crushing and grinding me to dust. I dreamed of being a big and famous hero like all of you – but I learned the hard way that to do what’s right we have to give up even the things we want the most. Especially our dreams. But, I guess, back then it suited you. Well, me too… After all, I didn’t have anything else… Only the name of Vista. Only my armor and my responsibilities.”

“...You have taught me to consider my job the most important thing in my life. And I will continue to think so. I don’t know how much more I have to give, but I sure as hell gonna give it my all. But without any benefits and plans and orders and lectures, without photoshoots and charity banquets, without talk shows and autographs! So much time that was wasted! There is only the next mission – and nothing else, for it is our duty. It is supposed to be. And I finally realized that I don’t need the rank of a Ward to fulfill it.”

Armsmaster abruptly turned off the screen and stood at the head of the table, putting his hands behind his back.

“The first and most important thing I want to say is that until we, our Protectorate, have a clear plan of action against the Undersiders, we shall not enter into any confrontations with them, apart from the usual cases when we see a crime already taking place. We will approach this issue through purely diplomatic methods. For now, at least. Though we have to consider this as the Undersiders’ attempt to start another battle and win before it actually starts. Even if it is not, the consequences might as well be the same.”

“Is that why the director is not here?”  Triumph said, stating rather than questioning. “Discussing it with the top brass. The ‘plan’.”

“Among other things.” Armsmaster nodded. “Considering that this situation could create problems not only for Brockton Bay.”

“Well, yeah, and not many people anywhere would like it if we opened the hunting season for our own Ward.” Velocity chuckled humorlessly.

“Exactly. And the Undersiders, apparently, will not deny themselves the pleasure to try and fight us on the media battlefield.”

“We would still come out victorious…” Battery said thoughtfully. “I mean, they understand that too, surely, so…”

“You haven’t really met with them for a long time, dear.” Assault smiled, though he didn’t like reminding even himself of the long months that his wife spent in the hospital after a meeting with Bonesaw – or reminding her of anything that was related to it. “Skitter rarely plays without risk, and Tattletale certainly won’t mind losing more than us if we don’t win either.”

“And the Undersiders are more likely to be in a winning position now, because we have much more to lose,” Armsmaster added gloomily. “While they are still playing the role of noble robbers. And the second thing that I will also repeat to all our PRT officers: proceed with extreme caution if you encounter Vista.”

“...She certainly doesn’t ‘play’ the role of a noble robber, right?” Aegis asked quietly.

“We do not know,” Armsmaster replied firmly. “We don’t know how far she desires to go, we don’t know what her and her new friends are planning,” he said with a barely discernible note of displeasure, “we don’t know what exactly their Thinker and Master are saying in her ear under the pretext of helping her. But we know for sure that Vista has already armed herself with firearms and was already seen using them without any hesitation. And also taking her power into account, she has become one of the most dangerous capes in the region. So I don’t want any of you to underestimate her. At any point. Is that clear?” He waited for the nods of agreement. “Then this meeting is concluded. I will inform you about the planned changes in the schedule and the rest later today.”

Assault watched with some surprise as Miss Militia, who had not said a word, walked out of the office with an unusually fast step – for the first time in his memory she was the first to leave, not one of the last.

“A few words, Assault?”

Assault, shrugging, silently touched Battery’s arm and winked at her, and then leaned against the corner of the table, turning to Armsmaster. Naturally, he waited until everyone had left the office.

“Something else about Vista, I take it?”  Ethan chuckled as Colin, with a barely perceptible sigh, stood next to him.

“I have a suspicion that she will be a hot topic for discussion for a long time.” Colin crossed his arms over his chest. “Is it because of her courage or stupidity, that’s the question. She’s capable of understanding the reasons for our actions, Ethan. But she refuses to understand.”

“Maybe there is some sense in her decision…”

“You and I lived through the times when the world was only trying to adapt to such a phenomenon as parahumans. And now everything is much better – not like in the days before, but... I’m afraid humanity is no longer physically able to return to them. And we have achieved what we achieved not only with pure heroic intentions. This is a fact.”

“Problems arise when these intentions stop being the most important thing, even if they are the second most important or whatever,” Assault grimaced. “However they may develop… They are too important.”

“I can name you at least eight different ‘hows’ that will do more harm than good.” Colin sighed. “However, we strayed from the topic. As you probably know, usually – preferably – Wards should have, in addition to the PRT staff responsible for them, a Protectorate hero who will keep an eye on their progress. This role is usually performed by the leader of the local Protectorate. But I,” Colin frowned, “...have ignored this particular part of my duties far too often.”

Assault just shrugged his shoulders in silence: not that he understood much about how Wards should work according to the law, and even if he could agree with Colin’s assessment of his own work, he also knew that Colin slept three or four hours a day because of his busy schedule as it is. 

“So… Wait-wait-wait.” Ethan raised his hands, “You are not…”

“I think you’re the best candidate for this role,” Colin said, absolutely seriously.

“Me?” Ethan chuckled. “Do you even know me? You’re even aware of my past!”

“I know you. And I’m aware of it. The latter was not the reason for my decision, I must note, but in general…” Colin shook his head. “As far as we know, even Vista doesn’t dislike you. And none of the Wards. The opposite, even. Maybe… They will need a slightly different approach. In light of the events that have happened,” Armsmaster paused for a couple of seconds. “Regardless of what I think about Vista’s decision, they do deserve more. They deserve help and guidance that will not leave them disappointed in all this – in our work.”

Ethan rubbed his forehead thoughtfully and looked up at the ceiling – one way or another, he did agree with this…

“Battery also has a good enough reputation among the Wards… And she can really teach them something good, unlike me.” He laughed.

“She has a good reputation among those Wards who saw her six months ago,” Armsmaster replied in a slightly sharper voice. “However, she would be my next candidate if you don’t agree.”

“You said that on purpose, didn’t you? If she finds out, she’ll try to persuade me too.”

“Was absolutely honest,” Colin said, raising his hand in a conciliatory gesture. “Unfortunately, I’m not sure how she will react to this assignment, having just returned to work. After all, that would require her to spend more time here, at the headquarters. Though it would do her some good to take it easy for a couple of weeks, even if she was for some reason cleared from the hospital.” 

“She’s going to be pissed and maybe more than a little,” Ethan muttered. “I’ve been telling her not to work too hard until she gets used more to her prosthetics, but, well... My wife is quite stubborn. Love her for it, but… Yeah.”

“I believe you would be eager to go out on the streets after such a long time as well.”

“Of course, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m worried about her.” Ethan snorted. “Especially now.”

“What does that mean?”

“Let’s be honest, Colin.” He looked up at him, “Can this situation force our dear Directors to consider trying to solve the Undersiders problem the hard way?”

“Do you have any objections?”

“...I would be pretty unhappy, given the circumstances,” Ethan said slowly.

“I know what you mean,” Colin began evenly. “I am sure that they will ask for my opinion. And when they do, I will advise against it. For one reason only – a large-scale operation is not worth it if it can create an S-class threat instead of only destroying it.”

“Hmm?”

“With all due respect, Ethan, but I find it hopelessly depressing that most of us – the majority of people – do not take really seriously the level of danger of the duo of a social Thinker with a great amount of resources and a dangerous Master like Skitter. I am sure that they have plans in place for a big fight, and if at least one of them will be successful, if even one of them survives, then this will create a real S-class threat specifically for the PRT. And driven not by any ordinary motives, but by desire for revenge. I also don’t count the rest of the Undersiders, although Foil and Vista under their leadership – if they stop holding back – might just be able to put down several full Protectorate teams here. Not to mention that we may encounter resistance from the civilian populace as well. Not to mention that they are dangerous as it is, just trying to control the city – any city, much less Brockton Bay, which is undermining the PRT’s authority.”

“You know.” Ethan sighed. “It’s some unlucky city we got.”

“There were several objective reasons for this…”

“Yes, yes, I know.” Assault waved his hand. “It’s just, you know, sometimes you want something simple: good, evil, good beats evil, people happy.”

“You know, from a certain point of view, we – or the city – are already very lucky: if even Skitter alone had a slightly less strong psyche or principles, then Brockton Bay would have become another quarantine zone long ago. Or if Vista had originally become a villain... or if Bakuda had been a little more desperate…”

“Color me convinced, I guess. Damn. Alright, so, do you have any instructions on my new assignment in mind?”

“I was... made aware that this is not a thing where clear plans can create the basis for positive results. For now, I’ll trust you with this. But keep me posted.”

“Yeah, I’ll try. So can I go now?”

“Yes.”

After leaving the office, Assault shook his head and sighed noisily again.

Naturally, he supported Armsmaster in his decision: people who were at the top, even at the top of an organization meant to do good, usually very quickly stopped being content with half measures – or threats to the status quo. And Assault really didn’t want to check how well the Undersiders were ready to defend themselves. However, Armsmaster’s own plans, which included a series of small operations and attempts to slowly reduce their influence, did not sit well with him either.

Most likely, they were all already in a dead end, and at this point it was impossible to go forward until someone backs down – and none of them were going to. However, Ethan personally didn’t mind living in the current precarious status quo, since he also didn’t exactly care about his career, for example.

He remembered one of the first comments on the PHO under Vista’s message. Just some guy who said he is a simple dock worker and doesn’t really know much about PRT politics and what not, but knows that it was Skitter and not any hero who stood between his teenage daughter – the same age as Vista – and Mannequin, so Vista probably made the right decision. He wondered how many stories like that they just didn’t hear.

And, of course, after all, Vista was kind of right about some things.

Chapter Text

Vista had ridden inside PRT’s armored personnel carriers on some missions before, and she’d ridden on Miss Militia’s motorcycle a couple of times, but that’s where her experience with cars ended. Her school was close to home, and she usually walked there – her mother used to smile and praise her independence, damn it – and she rarely went anywhere else. Besides, changing space around her was a much cooler and more convenient method of travel than moving around with the help of gasoline-smelling metal coffins on wheels.

Considering that the Undersiders, in turn, preferred four-legged living ATVs designed and made by Bitch, Vista had been surprised by Taylor’s recent call. But, at least, the black SUV waiting for her not far from home looked... impressive. And pretty nice. She always liked things that looked like they could inspire confidence – including her confidence in the fact that they wouldn’t break after an hour of use. Or maybe, on top of everything else, it was the hours of listening to the PRT officers debate the pros and cons of German, Russian and Belgian assault rifles.

“Good morning,” Vista greeted, as she always did before, climbing into the back seat. She paused for a second, but was saved from unnecessary thoughts by Skitter, who was sitting next to her and nodding.

“Well, not a very good morning.” Regent chuckled, sitting behind the wheel.

Vista, who hadn’t noticed him at first, froze, and then with great effort of will forced herself to unclench her fists and relax a little. Whoever he was, it would be wrong to directly show hostility to a teammate. But it was difficult. Vista didn’t tolerate any interference in what she considered personal, even if she had only pathetic crumbs of that personal left, but some of the powers... They could go much, much deeper. And Vista in general didn’t like all the powers that made a person into something... different. Thinkers, Masters, bio-Tinkers...

She more or less believed that the Undersiders wouldn’t use their powers on each other to harm. Even on her, though she was a newbie – and a recent enemy. But even some small joke could...

Vista sighed heavily and deeply.

“Cute car,” she muttered, turning her head to the window.

“Exactly, told Grue the same thing, it’s a sin to keep this little prettie in the garage, especially since I need to train, but he keeps talking about – meh – serious reasons!”

Vista blinked slowly, comprehending the unexpected conclusion: in a villain team assembled from very different capes, there were people who were not officially trained for the work they would actually be doing. It seemed very obvious. But it was probably time to get used to this. And hope that Regent wouldn’t need, for example, to test his off-road driving skills in a situation where the road was covered in smoke, and the asphalt ahead was turned into pieces of metal and glass because of a tinkertech bomb.

“...You know how to drive, right?” Vista asked slowly.

“I played a lot of racing games, why?”

Before Vista could get even more worried about Regent’s tone of voice, which had a slightly too perfect combination of mockery and sincere bewilderment, Skitter moved closer and patted her on the shoulder, shaking her head very expressively.

“Come on, Ski-i-itter.” Regent, glancing in the rearview mirror, snorted. “And besides, even if we collide with something, it will be others who will get hurt, not us.” He shrugged.

“Really,” Vista said skeptically.

“Yeah.” Skitter nodded, patting the door. “One of the trophies from Coil’s mercenaries. Armored windows and panels in the car body, reinforced suspension, new engine, reinforced tires…”

“Amazing music system… Ah, right, I installed that,” Regent finished in a very serious voice.

“Hmm. Not bad.” Vista chuckled approvingly. “Almost like an APC. Lacks firepower, though, but what can you do…”

Skitter stared at her for a couple of seconds before nodding briefly.

Huh, Lily scolded me for my strange comparisons back in the first week of our acquaintance. But what if they are true?

And I could probably fix this shortcoming I pointed out... Or at least tell them how to fix it. However, I have a feeling that, unlike some African warlords, the people here will not appreciate a car with a machine gun turret driving next to them.

“So where are we going anyway?” Vista settled herself more comfortably. “I understand that such things should not be discussed over the phone, but now…”

“To a small town to the north, it’s not far from here, but the road is... not straight,” Skitter shook her head. “I expected difficulties with your power.”

“And it’s not the best idea anyway to show off to everyone how the hills near the highway are getting rearranged,” Regent added. “People may start to panic... Too much of a fuss.”

“...Yes, I guess that’s true,” Vista said thoughtfully. “Also it all depends on the landscape, and people in cars may interfere with really big leaps…”

Huh, probably, the residents of Brockton Bay itself are just used to these kinds of things. So what if I tie the roofs of buildings in knots several times a day? Been weirder.

“Accord sent us a message,” Skitter continued. “Supposedly, a bunch of… ‘undesirable elements’ have fled to this town. They’re involved in human trafficking. Or human parts, at least. Shouldn’t be too hard, no capes involved.”

“We’ll see about that,” Vista grunted, having lost the desire to make predictions a long time ago, especially in a positive way. “Wait a minute. Accord? That... crime boss from Boston? What the hell?” she said succinctly, raising her voice a little. “I don’t remember anyone comparing him to the Undersiders.”

Skitter leaned back in her seat, clasping her hands and looking at Vista.

“First of all,” she said after a few seconds, “this is a mutually beneficial partnership, as evidenced by today, among other things. Secondly, we have concluded that having Accord as an ally is always better than not having… Although it’s better even just in general. What do you know about his power?”

“…He is a Thinker, I think.”

“He specializes in devising solutions for problems. The more complex the problem, the more effective he is in planning how to deal with it. And as you understand, this is incredibly valuable for us – not only for us-Undersiders, but for us-Americans as well. Maybe someday in the future, for us-humans…” Skitter sighed. “Thirdly, even if he is not us, Boston is clearly better off with him.”

“She means, for now our little gang is too small to handle two large cities at the same time,” Regent immediately cut in.

“He keeps order and hates drugs – it could be much worse. Fourthly, even if it does not affect anything, I have some sympathy for him. Even if it’s obvious that he revealed some facts about his past to present himself to us in a better light, seeing that our alliance is bearing fruit, it doesn’t matter, since they are more or less true – as far as Tattletale could confirm them. Well, of course, that civilian identity of his is long dead. But he did work for the PRT before and presented his superiors, for example, a plan to get rid of world hunger. And a few months later, a well-known cape in his field helped him to get out of prison.”

“World hunger.”

“Yep.”

“Holy shit.”

“I can give it to you to read later, it’s quite detailed, one hundred and fifty pages,” Skitter’s voice became a little warmer. “And even if I can understand the obvious problems with this plan, international politics and all that, I understand Accord’s actions better. And fifthly, when we offered him our support, we had much more important problems – and attacking him now, when he’s definitely came up with a couple of plans against us, is very dangerous.”

Skitter and talking about danger? Alright, got that.

“Hmm, when we discussed this the first time, I heard fewer reasons,” Regent said in a serious tone.

“Yes.” Skitter sighed. “You see, I asked myself the same question as Vista.”

“Yeah, well…” Vista rubbed her forehead, remembering only a moment later that she was wearing a helmet. “It is that easy, huh. I’m kinda used to capes being able to solve local problems... Big local problems, but anyway. And here it turns out that just one cape is capable of changing our whole civilization for the better…”

“I’m of the opinion that many capes could achieve something similar,” Skitter said sadly. “In a different world, I could be saving bees from extinction and help study the production of useful insect substances, you would personally supply polar expeditions with resources, and Dragon could’ve led us into a new era of progress. But a third of the capes – and ordinary people – care mostly about themselves, and another third care about themselves at the expense of everyone else.” Skitter spread her hands.

Pessimistic. But familiar. And can I really argue the opposite?..

“And that’s why people like us are more useful as Undersiders,” Vista said half-questioningly.

“As for ‘more useful’, that’s an interesting point,” Regent hummed. “I suggested Skitter go to Hollywood to work on practical effects, kinda sure she could earn enough cash to make this city a better place,” Skitter just sighed in response to that, “but somebody has to stuff the mouths of maniacs around with wasps. C’est la vie.”

“Something like that.”

“…I wonder what my superiors would have answered me if I had asked about Accord or the existence of such parahumans and plans… It was a rhetorical question,” Vista added, before Regent or Skitter could slip in their probably hostile remark. “But anyway… Thank you, Skitter. You know, for really answering me.” She smiled ruefully.

I don’t even know what I should think. Maybe I should just get angry. How has everything… turned out this way? The desire to save the world is already, like, not the brightest one, I’m aware of that, but I continue to find more and more reasons that complicate it further…

***

The grit, shards of glass and other debris softly crunched underfoot as the duo of villains walked forward. In Vista’s personal opinion, since, judging by the color of the sky, it was clearly going to rain, they should’ve hurried, but Skitter insisted on walking to the police officers that she immediately found here by a roundabout route. The route that led them through a street that looked like it was abandoned – just the right place for all sorts of scumbags, though. And, as Vista suspected, despite numerous appearances in front of people in broad daylight – even for other reasons than just for the sake of battles – Skitter still did not feel comfortable in the public eye. Although this did not seem to affect her performance.

“You know, I would’ve asked why Regent is going to intimidate somebody here,” Vista glanced sideways at Skitter, who was walking next to her, “alone, after all, if we came together, we should work together…”

“Division of labor is also important,” Skitter answered with a hint of irony. “And you and I are much better suited for… clearing out buildings.”

“Yes, yes, I don’t argue. I just wanted to say that, if you think about it, for many he would be even more frightening than you.”

“Really?”

“Most people do not think too much about their death. Usually they do not even think about the fact that such a thing can happen without a special reason or at all.” Vista grimaced, recalling the numerous cases when Wards had to protect those who traded the instinct of self-preservation for the thirst to gawk at something interesting from danger. “But to see your own hand holding a knife to your throat... To feel it... Maybe even scarier than cockroaches crawling inside your mouth.”

“Huh.” Skitter made an incomprehensible sound. “I thought that such conversations were usually held by Grue and Regent simply because Bitch or I could push too hard. At least, I completely agree with Tattletale on this one.” Skitter shrugged nonchalantly. “Here our travel plans coincided, that’s good, okay.”

“Well, she's right about that too…” Vista drawled.

Suddenly, Skitter quickened her pace and turned the corner. Vista, logically guessing who was there, on the contrary, slowed down a little: if she knew anything about her companion’s diplomatic skills, there was no point in scaring the police further. In fact, it was a little funny – this town, like a couple of others, were essentially almost an extension of Brockton Bay, but most of its problems bypassed them, since there was nothing particularly useful here. So even the Protectorate probably rarely visited this place, and Skitter herself was generally considered to be something of a legend – albeit a scary one.

“So?” Vista spoke up when Skitter returned to her and continued walking in the other direction.

“They will help us, of course. More precisely, they will follow us and confirm what happened, as we need. After all, they are standing here watching and waiting for reinforcements because of the lead that we gave them.”

Vista did not even comment on this, only shaking her head slightly. Her experience was more likely to suggest that it was the police who tried to “give” leads on more complex cases to the PRT, even if there was no hint of parahuman involvement – only assumptions that were more like fantasies. However, personally, of course, she mostly didn’t care: an extra reason to be on the streets, talk to people close to her in the profession or help out in some way, if nothing more serious was happening.

“Here’s our building,” Skitter, stopping near the end of the alley, nodded at the big brick box a little further on the other side of the unusually empty – compared to Brockton Bay ones – street. “We’re interested in what’s underneath it.”

“I’m not exactly criticizing,” Vista raised her palm, watching the first drops of rain smash against the armor, “but we don’t seem to be in a hurry. If they’re doing…”

“No need to hurry,” Skitter cut her off sullenly. “Not anymore.”

“I see.” Vista sighed quietly.

“I’m still gathering a swarm.” Skitter raised her gaze to the sky for a moment. “And it’s hard to get it inside. But I can see enough. If we’d found out... last night, maybe, then there would have been a real reason to hurry.”

“Well, now there’s a reason to quickly remove all this garbage from the face of the city,” Vista muttered, now being the first to walk forward.

Judging by the shadow that flashed behind one of the boarded-up windows, someone inside had managed to notice them – however, it was not at all difficult. They approached the only visible iron door, which, despite its battered appearance, would be a rather serious obstacle... for the police.

“Damn. I carry so many things with me, and I didn’t even take a simple megaphone.” Vista, standing next to the door, put her hand on the wall. “Should I yell them to surrender? Although they won’t hear me in the basement eve…”

Skitter turned her face to her, and Vista for some reason was sure that behind the dark yellow lenses her eyebrows were raised.

“…Habit,” Vista admitted, a little embarrassed. “Sure, I don’t ever do such silly things during a fight, but in general I usually had to…”

And also, naturally, the longer I’m in one place, the easier it is for me to use my power. Though I don’t think that anyone, including me, has ever seriously taken this fact into account when making plans… Only if it worked out by accident. Buying more time can be useful…

“Maybe for you specifically it’s… wasn’t so bad, but…” Skitter leaned her shoulder against the wall, and Vista suddenly managed to make out a strange whisper somewhere behind the walls.

When it died down, they waited for about twenty seconds, but nothing happened.

“Yeah. They never open,” Skitter commented, looking at Vista.

“That won’t help them.” She chuckled and stretched her arm towards the door that had begun to bend.

You definitely have nowhere to hide from the two of us. Few would be able to do so even among capes.

“Should I tell you that my swarm will be the first to go in?” Skitter asked casually.

Vista, who had already taken the pistol in her other hand, at the moment hidden under her cloak, and who was preparing to aim at the widening gap between the brick wall and the door, stopped for a moment, but then nodded. They stood on both sides of the door.

Technically, the first to cross the boundary of the building, in which the unexpected entrance appeared, were bullets. Several bandits opened fire towards the swarm of insects that had descended to the ground, but to no avail. Vista’s gaze slid over the brick chips torn off the wall, which showered her boots in dust, and she grabbed the pistol with both hands.

To her surprise – although there wasn’t anything to be surprised about, really – she found herself feeling a little nostalgic. Wards rarely participated in anything like this lately, being more busy maintaining the PRT’s public image. Even more so than before.

That was definitely stupid, even if Vista couldn’t order herself to feel otherwise. Or she could repress her emotions as usual… But she was trying to fight that habit now.

They waited a few more seconds after the bulk of the insects had flown in. Vista was grateful to Skitter that most of them weren’t flying near the walls – even if it didn’t really hinder her power, she still felt good knowing that her teammate was listening to what Vista was saying about it.

When the shots and the first screams died down, Vista confidently entered the doorway, holding her pistol at the ready. She wasn’t surprised that Skitter did the same thing in sync with her, holding nothing but a knife in her hand, and didn’t focus on it, concentrating on examining the half-empty room, in which there were only a few pieces of furniture, an overturned table with a couple of bottles and snacks, and six sluggishly fluttering bodies emitting inarticulate groans. And, naturally, heaps of buzzing insects covering people and all sorts of surfaces.

When one of the bandits, with an unexpectedly loud curse – apparently, the insects got through his clothes – jerked, turned over and stretched out his hand in their direction, a bullet hit the floor right in front of him. Splinters scratched his pale face. Vista mentally noted that even though she had managed to notice that he didn’t have any kind of weapon, her reflexes still worked.

It’s probably better this way. Better than to let down myself or someone else with a too slow reaction at one unfortunate moment. And look: everybody immediately calmed down, although not quietly.

Skitter, without even lowering her gaze, walked on, only carefully avoiding the glass fragments on the floor. Judging by the approaching sound of engines, she had also managed to give a sign to the police, so Vista followed her – but backwards and holding the bandits on the floor at gunpoint until the door to the room opposite the entrance closed behind them.

“This is a way to the basement,” Skitter said in an unexpected whisper, pointing to another iron door. “The stairs are to the right. There’s a guy with a shotgun standing at the bottom and behind the corner, probably waiting for those who’ll come in.”

Vista spent a couple of seconds doing the calculations in her head and a few more to approach the door and roughly sense the surroundings.

“Is he sticking out too much?” Vista also whispered.

“Half a body.”

“Then a little more to the right,” Vista murmured, creating a hole right above the door hinge and putting the gun to it. “And a little lower…” She adjusted the distortion of space. “Like this.” She pulled the trigger.

The roar of the shot in such a confined space hit her ears noticeably, making her wince and, apparently, miss the sound of the falling body.

“Almost in the heart.” Skitter nodded. “Good shot.”

“Simple geometry.” Vista smirked. “Of course, in theory I can make the bullets describe an infinity symbol in the air, but there is no point in complicating things unnecessarily.”

“Cool,” Skitter assessed laconically but sincerely.

“Working with a cape like you, who has all the information about what’s going on, is much cooler,” Vista responded with the same sincerity. “I’ll be honest, any Protectorate team would have bent over backwards to make you work with them. If they knew.”

“I’m really happy,” Skitter deadpanned, gesturing toward the door. Vista nodded and opened a way again.

The next few minutes passed as, maybe not quite normal, but routine: several bullet holes in the walls and knives and baseball bats lying underfoot, several dirty and cluttered rooms, several of their residents, mostly dealt with by a swarm of insects – and once by a nail enlarged to the size of a spear, loud screams and curses in their general direction, as well as a terribly disgusting smell. Although it mostly resembled a hospital rather than the smoke and blood Vista was accustomed to, that didn't make it any better.

One of the doors looked noticeably cleaner than the others. Vista noticed a slight hesitation in Skitter’s movements as she opened it and turned her head toward her. Vista shrugged and peered inside, just to confirm her own thoughts. Some obscure and big machines, bright lights, a computer, glass flasks, an operating table and surgical instruments on a counter nearby… A body on the table, somehow still looking almost alive, but missing at least the entire outer part of the abdomen, from what she could see.

This is horrible. This is tragic. Most likely, this was just an innocent person in the wrong place at the wrong time. But I can’t help but think that in our world he got off kinda easy... If I had to choose, then death under anesthesia – well, probably – is better than a bomb in the head or being melted in Crawler’s acid… If only I knew how to prevent all that.

Before entering the farthest room on the right side – the last one – Skitter, apparently, reflexively checked her trusty knife on her belt. However, since she remained silent, Vista figured that she did not expect anything dangerous.

The room looked clearly richer than the others, at least having some furniture and a clearly distinguishable smell of marijuana. On the nightstand in the corner lay two pistols that had clearly been in use for a long time. However, their probable owner, who froze in place near the table when Skitter appeared, apparently did not even think of touching them – judging by his pale appearance and the grimace on his face, he was closer to a heart attack.

Vista snorted mentally: it was bandits like this one, dressed in relatively nice clothes, wearing gold chains and carrying more weapons than they could realistically use, who were the first to start crying at the sight of handcuffs.

He started to mumble something, but Skitter immediately demonstrated to him that her left hook was just as good as the right one. His nose clearly crunched – and immediately after that the table on which Skitter dropped him, grabbing him by the chest, crunched. Then she took out the knife and pierced the bandit’s hand with one sharp movement, driving the blade into the table. Vista heard a pitiful, strangled squeak.

Oh. This is actually more difficult than it seems. You can, say, hit the bone... She handles the knife well... Or she has experience in this.

Not that Vista had a lot of mercy to spare for such individuals as it was, but after the last rooms she saw, there was completely none.

Naturally, no one could ever allow the Wards to even come close to the places where somebody could be put through the third degree or something at least remotely resembling that. Although Vista knew that in extreme cases this practice could be used. True, still not as harshly as Skitter was acting at the moment. And the situation would hardly have been considered extreme – after all, no one’s life depended on those pitiful fragments of information about the appearance and supposed New York origin of the people from the organization that hired these idiots to help “move goods” at the moment. Considering that this gang was not even directly involved in operations, there was no one to look for here while the trail was hot.

It was... depressing. Much more than Taylor’s quiet but very impressive threats, the dark red blood dripping from the table onto the floor and the smell from the bandit’s wet pants. Probably, her Ward friends would look at Vista with disdain now. Then again, they would never have been allowed near this place.

When Skitter finished, she ripped the knife off the table and carefully wiped the blade on the clothes of her interlocutor, who was limp with fear. Her last movement was so abrupt that Vista actually wanted to stop her – after all, there was no point in killing him now and it would even do some harm – but Skitter only snorted at, probably, her thoughts and silently walked towards the exit.

They left the room and went back to the stairs. For a second, their path was blocked by a young policeman who flew out of the operating room and emptied his stomach on the floor. Skitter, without reacting to this in any way, simply walked around him.

“You’re a police officer, damn it.” Vista shook her head, passing by. “Get a hold of yourself.”

The sight of the police bustling around, taking away handcuffed bandits and inspecting the premises filled her heart if not with pride, then probably with satisfaction, even though a frown froze on her face. As always. In principle, everything went as one could hope. Even if they were late… It was a relatively good day. They had accomplished something.

Vista was honest with herself: it was nice to be able to focus entirely on her own work. No unnecessary conversations, no last-minute orders and instructions in her earpiece, no fear of overdoing it or, on the contrary, underdoing it… No reports and meetings with useless discussions awaiting her after anything remotely serious happened. And even though she understood perfectly well why all that… a lot of that was needed – why it was necessary – it didn’t change how she felt. After all, she knew perfectly well that the Protectorate heroes were bothered with this less often, well, except for reports. But, of course, all her experience and skills, which put her close to real, hmpf, heroes, were worth nothing because of her height and the number in her passport.

Even the thick dark cloak on her shoulders, which the PR department would never approve of and which provided much more comfort in the rain than just armor, pushed her to mostly negative thoughts in this regard.

“Their boss is in the far room on the right.” Skitter turned to the sergeant and a couple of other police officers standing at the exit to the street. “He promised to be honest and share everything with you,” contempt slipped into her voice.

“I see.” He nodded unexpectedly calmly, although his tense gaze did not escape even Vista, who did not often pay attention to such things.

And the week before, I was thinking about why the police were not too eager to interfere with her. Well, if I myself have changed my mind…

“We… appreciate the help,” the sergeant said in a low voice when Skitter had already taken a few steps further. She only waved her hand without turning her head, making Vista sigh.

“Always happy to help.” She nodded to the police. “Always ready to lend you a hand!” She tried to smile one last time and followed Skitter.

Damn it. What the hell do you mean, ‘ready to lend you a hand’? Technically they break the law accepting it. Out loud, at least… That’s what they call a familiar environment…

They walked out into the street: for a moment, everyone around them turned to look at them when Vista bent the danger line up for convenience, and then very quickly turned back when they saw who it was.

Yeah, it’s not like Brockton Bay, where even Tattletale was asked for autographs a couple of times, if the PHO is to be believed. Maybe Dennis really was right about us being such an exception... I wish he was right about the new coffee machine or something. Damn.

“Well…” Vista drawled, waiting until she and Skitter had moved to a more secluded place. “What now? A little road trip to New York?”

“No,” Skitter answered, scowling. “Relatively far away and too little data. Also New York is such a mess of... everything. We’ll send an anonymous tip to their Protectorate.”

“Do you really believe that will help?” Vista let out a chuckle, knowing full well both the attitude of most officers to such tips and what percentage of them were outright nonsense.

“It’s not for nothing that I know Legend personally. So to speak. This is not the first time, and, apparently, they do read our messages. At the very least, they definitely started reading them after Imp suggested drawing a spider as a signature,” Skitter made a sound that suggested she smiled.

Vista spent a few seconds in thought.

“...Even if I don't know her very well, this really does sound like her idea. Although if Legend isn’t completely stupid – and a hero like him can’t be – then he’ll guess who’s the author in, like, three seconds.”

“If they report it to him, you mean.”

“Hmm…”

“But if even so, officially this is a message from people sympathetic to the PRT and wanting to help. Completely nameless, obviously. And everybody’s happy.”

“Uh... Well, I guess... Damn.” Vista shook her head discontentedly. “I feel naive again.”

“It’ll pass,” Skitter muttered, quickening her pace.

As it turned out, Regent dealt with his task very quickly, scaring some man half to death – which, in Vista’s opinion, was very easy for him to do in every sense of the word – and just sat waiting for them in the car, playing poker on his phone. The drive through the continuing downpour back to Brockton Bay passed in the tense silence. Though Vista liked this kind of weather, however uncomfortable it might’ve been.

***

The slam of the SUV door was loud enough to make Vista wince. Skitter didn’t deign to say goodbye, but that was also familiar to Vista: sometimes on busy days, heroes forgot not only about the rules of decency, but also about hunger, concussions, or holidays, including birthdays that took place on the same day.

Though being alone with Regent made Vista feel a little uncomfortable, even if she didn’t show it outwardly.

“So, what’s the next stop?” she asked Regent, keeping her voice calm as he tapped his finger on the steering wheel in time with some thoughts of his own.

“Yours isn’t this one?”

“Not really. I want to go home before patrol.” Vista sighed.

The devil made me give in to Lily and Sabah’s persuasions and try to establish a normal schedule for myself. Pfft. And then what, will my body now get used to eating three times a day like a normal person would? Nothing but an inconvenience, come on!

If anything, my stomach is more likely to be damaged by a bullet than gastritis.

“Patrol after our nice little outing? You really are crazy about this shit,” Regent said with interest, as if he was telling her some fresh news. “But whatever, anyway, that’s not what I wanted to talk about. I have a feeling that our bug girl could use some help right now.”

“...Help? Her? Skitter hardly ever needs help.” Vista let out a surprised laugh. “And why me, anyway?”

“You’re a hero, do you need any more reasons?”

Vista pursed her lips and crossed her arms over her chest.

“You seem like a hero, but your look promises trouble almost like Rachel’s, really feeling it.” He snorted. “Well, here’s your reason: I have enough faith in Lizzie and her opinion that you’re both similarly fu... unhealt... ah well, fucked up in the head about certain things. Relevant at the moment,” Regent fell silent for a couple of seconds. “And I’m not the best consoler for her. Usually I help her out when it’s too late to console – which I’m proud of, of course. But for now…”

“And what will happen when it’s too late?” Vista narrowed her eyes.

“Believe me, it’s better for you not to know.” Regent grinned. “But somebody gets absolutely royally fucked at such moments.”

“...Hmm. To be expected,” Vista glanced at the inconspicuous door, behind which Skitter had disappeared. “I didn’t think anything was wrong... What can I say... Typical T- Skitter.”

“Oh, you’ll learn in time.” Regent waved his hand. “In battle, of course, it’s difficult, but in conversations you can notice how her voice goes, you know, in waves, sometimes normal, sometimes downright calm. Obviously, if she’s trying to hide it, then something’s wrong. It’s usually harder to get her to admit it herself, heh.” He shook his head.

“…Thank you. I guess,” Vista said uncertainly, not knowing how to react to this short Skitter 101 lesson.

I’m not very good at recognizing lies – maybe because I can't lie to save my life – but Taylor doesn’t seem like a great actress. Hiding emotions, though... Well, I guess we both have some experience in that. And it’s easy to believe that Taylor who was hugging me crying and Taylor-the-ruthless-villain are one person who doesn’t even change much. Me-Vista hasn’t changed much this week either, despite my probably unexpected decisions.

And even though Regent’s words clearly hint that this has happened more than once, I think it’s better not to bring it to the point of… needing his help, yes.

“Well… Then… Shall I go help her?” Vista said half-questioningly.

“I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you!” Regent’s voice returned to its previous tone.

“I have no doubt.” Vista rolled her eyes and got out of the car.

The building in front of her looked completely ordinary: not futuristic and not really old, not damaged, but without the shine of a recent renovation. There were no people of a certain type and build visible on the street – although from the backyard, of course, it was hard to see anything – working as security and all that, whom Vista had learned to recognize over the years at first glance just in a crowd. Vista was even sure that somewhere in the building there were completely legitimate people from some official company, unaware that the most influential gang around was discussing their business on the floor above.

And even though the building was inconspicuous and not located quite in the center of the city, Vista, having heard about the Undersiders’ office from Lily, wanted to curse pretty loudly, because their cover seemed incredibly simple. But, as a quote that Vista saw in some book said, the easiest way to hide was to hide in plain sight.

Opening the door, Vista, easily recalling her friend’s words, walked down the corridor to the left to the third door, went up the stairs to the second floor, met a man of that same build with a baton on his belt, who seemed to be sitting there for absolutely no reason, and only silently followed her with his eyes, and went up to the iron door next to him. Smiling for a moment – of course, compared to the headquarters, it looked a little archaic – she entered the eight-digit code on a small panel next to the door and went inside.

Another short corridor later, she entered the Undersiders’ inner sanctum for the first time – although, of course, Vista suspected that most of the important stuff was in Tattletale’s supposed office, or somewhere in the houses of the others... or just in their heads, which would not be particularly unusual. Or maybe in the basement of Parian’s store, under a stack of some bright yellow fabric.

“Vista,” Skitter’s calm voice greeted her as soon as she entered the room.

Skitter, already without the mask lying next to her, was currently sitting on a large table in the center of the room with her back to the entrance and, as it seemed, keenly studied the huge map of Brockton Bay attached to the wall, covered with all sorts of notes, signs and, of course, approximate control zones. Vista, with a weird feeling, could not help but notice that there were exactly as many chairs around the table as was the number of Undersiders, including her.

Oh-h-h, I certainly could spend hours here, there is definitely a lot of interesting intel on this map that may not be known to our... the PRT analysts.

“Everything’s fine,” Vista answered, knowing full well from her own experience what Skitter meant. “I... thought…” She hesitated and sighed. “Are you upset by our mission?” 

At least, that’s what I’d assume about almost anyone with that demeanor, except, huh, Skitter. Victoria might have acted that way, even if she was trying to hide behind a mask of a brave and supportive hero. Someone like Armsmaster would have been even more formal than usual, and would have definitely engaged the cops in conversation about the whole thing. And most of my friends… It would have hurt them in a much more obvious way.

Taylor turned her head to look at her, studying her.

“Upset? No.” She snorted. “I’m just…” She grimaced. “Unhappy. Very. Unhappy.”

“With what?” Vista stepped closer, watching the flies circling the air in the corners of her eyes.

“The situation. The aftermath. Your former colleagues!” Vista practically flinched at the sound of heavy boots as Taylor suddenly jumped off the table to the floor. “Hey, I’m so prone to escalation that it makes me dangerous! We’re making the situation worse! We’re setting a terrible example!” She threw up her hands. “After all, before Skitter appeared, we didn’t have fucking slavery, forced prostitution, Nazis, thieves or maniacs in our city! But as soon as this horrible villain started giving them what they deserved, all of that suddenly stopped! The Nazis had an external… reason, with which we’ll deal later, but for fuck’s sake, now there’s organ trafficking!” Taylor exclaimed angrily. “Did I have to crucify the entire Orchard team with all their biotinker bullshit in front of the city hall so that this wouldn’t happen here?! When will the heroes understand that the people behind this, with their millions in hidden bank accounts and deep connections, aren’t afraid of all these long jail sentences that they all still need to be brought to?!”

Vista frowned, took her helmet off her head and leaned against the edge of the table. With some difficulty tearing her gaze away from Taylor, who started pacing, she sighed and shook her head.

“And this will continue until they learn that retribution for the crimes committed is inevitable!” Taylor continued. “If I had the whole Protectorate ENE at my disposal, I would clean up all this shit in Brockton Bay within a week! In six months – even the whole fucking state!”

Doubtful. Very doubtful. At the end, the PRT, in addition to other duties, literally cleans up the aftermath of cape conflicts. Plus all those who are guilty of something small, plus the whole organization of such things, logistics, security... Probably, Skitter, as the leader of a cape team capable of implementing “hit and run” tactics, is not too familiar with this. However, could she have managed to do it, say, in a month? I think so. I personally saw how, for lack of a better word, easy it was to work, utilizing her power. Even if we didn’t have Skitter around, all this already went on for years. But also...

“There would be casualties,” Vista said, not looking up. “Maybe even more among civilians than among us. With all the chaos, even with the evacuation, with every villain who would have decided on desperate measures, defending themselves from us…”

“Yes!” Taylor said through clenched teeth. “There would be! No matter how hard I would try to avoid it while carrying out this operation. They would be on my conscience. Maybe I would have to look into the eyes of all those who died because of me, and listen to how the PRT was doing better before me, but fuck! The PRT protected the city so well that a year, and two, and three years ago there were casualties one way or another every week! But they didn’t start anything, they just did their fucking duty, so they’re fucking great! Let people die, constantly, consistently, after all, we can get used to it and live with it, but changing it?! No way in hell! Was what we had really better?”

“No,” Vista answered quietly and dully, staring at her own reflection in the glass of her helmet.

Taylor perked up and, looking at Vista, fell silent and sat down on the table again, closer to her.

“Usually Lisa or Brian try not to let me… feel like this for too long,” Taylor said more quietly. “You… didn’t have to listen to that. And I didn’t mean to imply that it was somehow your fault.”

Vista sighed heavily, looking up at her with displeasure…

“…Anyway,” Taylor interrupted Vista’s unstarted remark, “you might have a useful idea for this. Instead of arguing about who of us bears what share of the blame for events that others don’t think we should feel responsible for.” She rolled her eyes, probably being much more familiar with this than Vista had been in recent months.

Vista couldn’t help but chuckle.

“We could always have that debate in our own heads. At any time.” Vista smiled wryly. “Well… It’s not a specific idea, but you know, Armsmaster says that it’s important to always – as much as possible – have some goal in mind that you know you can accomplish with acceptable effort. Or divide the larger goal into steps. You get the idea.”

“I can take Congress hostage to show the seriousness of my statement about the need for retaliatory measures.”

“Something with slightly less serious consequences?” Vista said slowly, guessing that Taylor’s even tone meant, at the very least, that she didn’t see it as something really difficult.

“Another of my long-standing goals is to make the PRT less of a pain in our ass.” Taylor snorted. “Then again, that train had left the station a long time ago.”

“Working together might yield similar results,” Vista said thoughtfully. “Or a willingness to do so. A willingness to do so by their standards, at least.” She sighed.

“I didn’t think you would ask me to work with the PRT.”

“No offense, but I know how necessary the PRT is better than any of you, including Lily,” Vista muttered. “Despite… everything. I’ve allowed myself a little selfishness lately, but if we’re talking about ideas seriously... At the end of the day, they’re still fighting and still protecting people.”

I’ve seen ordinary people go into battle against villains with us side by side, I’ve seen heroes risk their lives for the people, not to mention the Protectorate as a whole, I’ve seen dull eyes and blood stains on their costumes after particularly difficult days. My problems with the PRT aren’t about that. But all the problems that I can solve are related to exactly that...

Ending the war through working with the public before it starts is a good idea. But it started before I was born, and we’re still stuck in this swamp. And I’m not even sure that I’ll see some changes in my lifetime.

“And besides, ‘work with’.” After a couple of seconds of silence, Vista shook her head. “Six months ago, I would have told you to shut up and beg on your knees for us to allow you to join our ranks. Hmm, maybe we could set ourselves up as an independent hero team…”

“We can’t. We break the law.” Taylor shrugged. “Every few days. And, among other things, for reasons beyond our control.”

“Maybe… No,” Vista cut herself off. “No compromise. Not on that,” they said in unison. Taylor smiled faintly.

“Unless we somehow convince them to turn a blind eye to what’s needed,” Taylor pursed her lips. “The PRT has experience with that, at the very least.”

“Part of me wants to tell you to tone it down,” Vista winced. “But another part of me wants to remind myself of how disappointed Glory Girl was when she mentioned how easy her aunt’s killer got off. Or remind me of Shadow Stalker. Or Coil. Fuck.”

Taylor touched her shoulder silently and unusually gently.

“…It doesn’t fit Armsmaster’s rule, because I don’t have a single idea on how to achieve it,” Vista continued. “But I’d like to change the way heroes work, a little. I guess. I don’t even know where else I want it, besides our city, whether my desire is justified or not, and so on... I’ve only become convinced that it’s not at all easier for Vista to change the system from the inside – because I simply wouldn’t be able to stand ignoring what was troubling me for another ten or twenty years,” she hissed through clenched teeth.

“I can guess.” Taylor muttered. “After all, that’s why you’re sitting in these headquarters now. And about the idea... I think the others would call it stupid. Or at least idealistic. Which, by the way, is true.” She shrugged.

“And you, oh so terrible villain Skitter?”

“Unlikely. At least with the local Protectorate, who are quite unhappy with us. But it wouldn’t be bad.” She picked up the mask from the table. “Not bad, yes... Even if I don’t agree with this accusation, let other independent capes copy our methods of working together instead of our methods from the time of Slaughterhouse Nine and the Fallen,” she said a little more sadly. “Okay. We’ll see, Vista.”

Vista nodded, smiling at the corner of her lips.

“By the way... it was actually Regent who suggested that I check on you.”

“Alec,” Taylor corrected Vista absentmindedly. “I guessed, yes. Although I try not to eavesdrop on, at least, people I know, you were just sitting in the car for quite some time. It's unlike you both.” She chuckled. “I appreciate it.”

“I owed you,” Vista stated. “And you didn’t even cry on my shoulder today.”

“I wasn’t with you that day for such a reason,” Taylor answered firmly.

“I know.” Vista shrugged. “Sorry?”

Taylor gave her a careful look.

“I can hug you again.”

“Uh-h-h... I appreciate the thought, but don’t. I mean, I’m used to blood, but I don’t have a habit of touching it unnecessarily.” Vista pointed to the stains on Taylor’s chestplate. “I just cleaned my armor again last night.”

“Ah, right. Then maybe later.”

Vista noticed a few flies flying in front of Taylor. Apparently, she herself hadn’t noticed the stains before.

“I don’t think so, we have a lot of work,” Vista jumped off the table. “But... Yeah, maybe later.”

At least Vista didn’t feel like she wanted to refuse right here and now. It... made her feel better. A little. Probably that’s how it should be in normal life.

I should go on patrol with Taylor sometime. …I guess it will be easier to adjust our schedules for that purpose than all the other Undersiders’.

Chapter Text

“Well damn, you are actually far better than a car!” Tattletale exclaimed with a satisfied smile. “I certainly would’ve been caught up in the traffic at this hour.”

Vista looked around: today the docks certainly seemed a little busier than usual. Though she by no means was an expert. She knew that a lot of new capes went here to play around with their powers, and the PRT often turned a blind eye to that, but her own attempt to do that back in her first year was… more memorable than most of the others’. So after she was properly chewed out, Vista stayed away from the place. Besides, it wasn’t really a place of interest for gangs, so…

“I am.” Vista rolled her eyes, returning the rooftop they came down from back to normal. “But do remember that my name’s Vista. Not VisTaxi. And I will not be your ‘driver’ every morning.”

“Eh, I’ll try.” Tattletale nonchalantly shrugged. “You’re rather snappy today, haven’t slept?” Before Vista could tell her something else unpleasant because she knew that Tattletale knew, Tattletale took something from her bag and shoved it into Vista’s hands. “Here, be amazed by my achievements.”

“...What’s this?”

Smells tasty, at the very least.

“Won’t bother you with the words you don’t know, so it’s, like, a fish pie. There’s a new Russian cafe near our apartment.”

“And how exactly,” Vista, after a moment of contemplation, took a bite, “is this your achievement?”

Ha, when was the last time I ate while wearing my costume? Well, out here on the streets, anyway. And in the cafeteria I didn’t wear my helmet… Been a few times when no one really cared for that, but it was when something actually serious was going on, absolutely not worth it. But now… It is a certain… vibe, I guess. It’s nice.

“The same way it was for an Italian place and a French boutique on the Boardwalk, a new mall and a Japanese restaurant in the city center, a new car workshop at the place where you found a certain amount of Nazis – and fucked it up a bit… And,” Tattletale proudly raised a finger, “this isn’t all! Business is blooming! As it should: we didn’t spend so much time and effort making Brockton Bay a safer place for nothing. As you understand, obviously, before our city wasn’t really the best place for investment or… anything, really. But do not worry,” she sounded so full of herself, “I will make our city great again! Well, relatively good again, at least.” She nodded to her own thoughts. “After all, I can’t really control everything in it myself, so I can’t be sure. But I did promise to try my best,” Tattletale ended on a bit more serious note.

“...Okay,” Vista said slowly, a little surprised. “That’s great, I guess. Sounds… promising. So that ‘business’ thing you wanted to talk to me about since my first day is about this?”

“Had a lot of ideas on how to utilize your unbelievably versatile power,” Tattletale confirmed. “But yeah, most of them needed someone else’s cooperation before yours.”

“I hope it’s not contraband.”

“Of course not! We have better ways.”

Yeah, she’s not Taylor, I don’t think I’m good enough to see through her bullshit. And I do know that when she isn’t serious, her smile is the same! Ugh. Is she serious? Probably. But the Undersiders are not really that kind of a gang…

“One of the obvious ways to make things better,” Tattletale continued, gesturing to the ocean, “is to get the docks out of their state of perpetual agony – putting them out of their misery would be easier, but less profitable in the long run, if my math’s correct. And it is. So, how do I do that? By trying to revive some remnants of ocean freight. And for that I need a new company. And to help them get off the ground I need some more finances, which I’ll get through a small contract with one of the French firms, which may also work with them in the future.” She pointed somewhere on the horizon. “But how will m- this completely independent company complete this contract while they themselves are not ready, you’ll ask?” She looked at Vista expectantly.

“That’s what I’m here for,” Vista said uncertainly.

“Yep!”

“And how…”

“Pretty easy. Near tha-a-at one shiny metal building I left a mark which… should help you find the place there – your powers can handle making a way through the Atlantic, I’m sure,” Vista only rolled her eyes in exasperation, “then you’ll get there, go inside a blue building, make the containers inside small, get back here and place them in this building. In and out, fifteen minutes tops, once a week.” Tattletale waved her hand. 

She could at least ask about my limits… I mean, I’m pretty sure I can do that, but damn. Fine, I guess, something important to do for a change – out of all those times people were bossing me around. If it’ll help Brockton Bay…

“I wonder what would happen if I’d refuse.” Vista said quietly.

Tattletale only arched an eyebrow, as if not believing that could ever happen, making Vista sigh.

“Even though I was sure, I have enough pretty papers with me,” Tattletale patted her bag, “to persuade you if the need arises.” She suddenly chuckled. “Would say I kinda miss the old days when we had to come up with plans on a whim, but most of the time I really don’t.”

“You… We’ll get some sort of profit from this, right?” Vista asked hesitantly. “I mean, I’m up for doing this just because it needs to be done, I guess, but it’s… big. Seems big to me.” She looked down. “I don’t know shit about transportation and companies and stuff, it has to be crazy expensive and you trust me with this big thing right off the bat…”

Big not-including-what-I-am-skilled-at thing.

“Even if you’d let me down, it wouldn’t be the end of the world, you know.” Tattletale snorted. “People fuck up, believe me, I know. Whatever.”

“...I don’t want to make a habit out of it,” Vista scoffed.

“You might say I’m biased – and I am – but that was PRT’s fault, my little ex-Ward. No sense in…”

Sure. But it’s not just about the organization itself. 

“Don’t fucking call me that, Tattletale. Alright?”

“If you insist.” Tattletale smiled.

“And, you know, I don’t really understand how you can trust me with something like this and then talk to me like…” Vista exhaled sharply. “Even Armsmaster didn’t talk about what an asset I am to my face.”

“I don’t trust you.” Tattletale interrupted her. “Not yet, maybe. Just like Grue or Bitch. And the rest of us except Foil don’t even really know you. But Skitter trusts you to do the right thing… For me that’s enough. And this isn’t crucial to our operations.” She paused for a moment. “Also, don’t ever fucking compare me to Armsmaster. Alright?”

…She is kinda right, I guess. Even if I’m in the team, well… We’re not friends.

“And you are not an asset.” Tattletale pursed her lips. “I mean, on one hand, you obviously are, and a very valuable one, just like we all, but I do not think of you like that.” She let out a sigh. “I’m sorry. Vista,” she muttered.

I guess it could be worse. She absolutely can be worse. And she was the one who found me a place to live. Still a bitch, though.

After several seconds of silence, Vista decided to take the olive branch. After all, she herself wasn’t the best at giving them. Or really talking in such situations.

“...So, profit?” 

“Oh, you wouldn’t believe,” Tattletale’s voice immediately returned to her usual tone. “Quite a few beautiful zeroes. The majority of them isn’t meant for us, but still… Huh.” She stroked her chin. “Though you actually would believe, wouldn’t you? Unlike Skitter or Grue, heh. After all this time, and Parian is still the one who’s used to the amount of our money the most.”

“Why would I?” Vista said, puzzled. “Don’t tell me you don’t know what Wards make, I won’t believe you. Pretty sure the most money I ever actually held in my hands was, like, four hundred bucks.”

“What? But you…” Tattletale narrowed her eyes, looking at Vista. “No, you’re telling the truth… Hmm. Now that’s… Just to be sure, you remember Shatterbird, correct?”

“Of course?” Vista waved her hand with a huffed sigh.

“Shatterbird of the Slaughterhouse Nine.” Tattletale started talking slowly. “The Nine, who all have kill orders on them. And, therefore, bounties. Shatterbird, one of the most infamous of them. Whom you killed.”

Vista fell silent for a few seconds, trying to process that. She opened her mouth. Then closed it again. 

“Considering the list of her crimes, the bounty should’ve been… probably more than a million.” 

Vista slowly blinked several times, shifting her gaze to Tattletale’s face.

“Son of a bitch.”

“‘Son of a bitch’ indeed,” Tattletale wholeheartedly agreed.

***

While Skitter listened to the story without any commentary, with her face behind the mask turned to the streets, Parian visibly was worried and surprised, tapping her cheek in thought and murmuring something. Or maybe she was just a little nervous standing on a rooftop, like Missy was in the past. For Vista that was a little bit funny: unlike most capes, “Parian” was just Sabah who was wearing her costume. Some things have been changing, of course, but not nearly enough for examples Vista used to be seeing. And extremely far from people like Skitter or Vista herself, who sat on the other end of the spectrum.

“This story is… quite concerning, I should note,” Parian said with a sigh. “Though only a little less concerning than the fact that you managed to forget about a million dollars. It was that bad? Or you were busy? No, not busy -busy, but, well…” 

It wasn’t the best phrasing, but Vista felt comfort over concern for her in Sabah’s voice.

“Despite our city’s experiences, it’s not like anybody taught us about that particular… law, I guess.” Vista shrugged her shoulders. “Kill orders, okay, that’s a thing – not a thing everybody and their dog knows about – but we wouldn’t be allowed to, huh, participate anyway. Besides, it happened when we all were fighting Echidna… Wasn’t the best day of my life,” Vista just barely managed to keep her voice even, instantly remembering the reason for the certain part of her nightmares. “One of the few times when I could say that hurrying me to a hospital was actually justified – not the mental one, thankfully.” Vista noticed a particular tilt of Parian’s head that most likely meant she was frowning. “Then after I had to catch up on my paperwork and shit, and overall we had our hands full back then. So… Yeah.”

Parian stood close enough to try and pat Vista’s shoulder. Vista let her.

“Still, you shouldn’t be the only one who has to remember,” Skitter muttered.

“It is what it is.”

“Unfortunately.” Parian shook her head. “But, if you are planning… to chat with the PRT about this, why call me?” She unwittingly hugged herself. “They won’t be intimidated much.”

Honestly, Parian could be pretty scary if she wanted, but in any case, she’s great for knowing things about herself.

“I called you exactly because we’re going to chat with them.” Skitter turned to her teammates. “Vista has an official reason to be there, we both are just her backup. You know, if someone’s gonna start talking about how she shouldn’t be there or something.”

I doubt that, but okay. Guess it never hurts to have backup. Backup who’s not gonna look over my shoulder all the time.

“Also,” Skitter continued, “yes, if we’d brought Bitch or even Tattletale, they might just think we’re there to do something else. I count as well, but… You know, I’m…” she unexpectedly trailed off.

“So I’m the least threatening one,” Parian said thoughtfully. 

“Isn’t that the point of your own, I don’t know, image?” Vista asked sincerely.

“That may be, but still…” Parian sighed. “On one hand, yes, and I don’t really want to… fight, but on the other hand, I do go out with you on missions and stuff…”

“Less people will expect an attack from you,” Vista noted. “A possible advantage.”

“That sounds more like I’m an assassin.”

“Or a psychopath. Everybody’s got a knife these days, but you can cut people with a pair of scissors.” Skitter’s tone hinted at her smile.

Vista loudly snorted.

“Screw you both.” Parian crossed her arms over her chest.

“We’re also establishing your reputation as a diplomat, sort of. Our diplomat, anyway.”

Meaning that in the future Parian appearing would be a sign from us that we can settle for a talk instead of the usual way.

“That should be Tattletale, no?” 

“If I had to guess,” Vista grunted, “she is a diplomat for cases when the Undersiders already won or when there’s a way to win through talking. Not actually negotiate in the truest sense of the word.” 

Skitter only shrugged.

“There weren’t a lot of opportunities for those,” she said vaguely.

“Everything checks out, though,” Vista quietly laughed. “Every team in every book has to have a token good or bad teammate, and, considering our circumstances, you are certainly the former, Parian. The one who says ‘he’s not worth it’ or something.”

“If I understood you correctly, it means I have my work cut out for the coming years…” Parian murmured. “But isn’t it you, Vista?”

Years. Damn, I’m jealous of you, Sabah. Stay an optimist.

“Hardly.” Vista looked down. “I hardly ever have been, I think. For a few first months, maybe.”

“So was I, then,” Skitter suddenly said. “Though it was weeks and not months, I guess.”

Vista and Parian silently turned their heads towards each other, exchanging glances. For some reason Vista was sure they both were skeptical of Skitter ever being that person – after all, only after her appearance their Protectorate started dedicating meetings solely to discuss her team. 

“Let’s get back to business.” Skitter shook her head. “So, shall we enter through the front door?”

“We can even walk to the headquarters from here.” Vista shrugged, nodding to the building that was a little down the street.

“Really?”

“Why the hell not?”

“Even I do not really walk the streets during the day,” Parian noted. 

“People do need to see those who fight for them,” Vista replied with a hint of contempt. “It… works. Besides, it’s not like anybody will try to attack us. And not just because Skitter is scary, I think.”

Skitter grunted and looked down at all the ordinary people walking on the sidewalk, who didn’t have any idea about three villains standing on the rooftop.

“It makes sense, I guess,” Parian said. “If we plan to stick around, people have to… know that we are actually here. Not only when there’s something exploding. Better chances that people will actually remember how we look, if there’s no reason for them to run high on adrenaline,” she laughed quietly. “You both look like horror movie antagonists as it is, let them see you in the daylight, at least.”

“I resent that.” Vista visibly adjusted the edge of her cloak.

“We already talked about it, Parian,” Skitter said in an even voice.

“You have an artistic streak, you just apply it in a… weird way!” Parian waved her hands. “But yes, spider silk also is not the best material for such purposes…”

“And amazing for my purposes,” Skitter replied firmly. “Fine. We may as well take a walk.”

“Also,” Vista added, “I may know… well, almost everything about the building, but going through any other entrances except the main one is a bad idea. That will look like an attack for sure.”

“They don’t know that we know, though…” Skitter muttered thoughtfully.

“They have to assume that I told you everything I know.”

“Only assume. And the more we don’t use that supposed knowledge, the easier for them to believe that we don’t know…”

“I thought we were going to chat with them.” Vista chuckled.

“Of course.” Skitter straightened out, focusing on her. “Just thinking aloud.”

“I always have extremely mixed feelings about this phrase of yours, Skitter,” Parian murmured.

Vista quickly created a path down for them into the back alley, and then they went out to the main street – more precisely, stopped just after stepping on the sidewalk.

People around them froze almost synchronously: from the old woman, who dropped her blue purse on the ground, to the pair of students who quickly flinched and made a few steps back. The closest car on the road also suddenly stopped, almost causing a traffic incident – though the guy inside actually started recording them with his phone. In the relative silence a toddler in his mother’s arms laughed and tried to reach out to Parian. Though Vista noticed that nobody was… actually afraid. Of course, for her it meant that nobody tried to run away screaming, even if several people very abruptly changed direction and walked away at a brisk pace. That was a smart thing to do, in any case.

Vista reflexively wrapped herself in her cloak, making it longer, so that even her boots could be seen just barely. She wanted to pull up her hood as well, but decided that people would react better if they saw her pretty well-known helmet. Even if it meant she felt less comfortable.

My god, does it mean no more stupid questions from random people while I’m on patrol? Sure hope so.

Walking towards the PRT headquarters proved to be extremely easy: everybody stayed out of their way, even if they stared at them in a weird mix of amazement, anticipation and fear. Several people actually tried to wave at them, and at least two seemed to be calling 911. And one particularly bold woman tried to ask about a selfie, though Vista was sure that only she heard her. Skitter, as usual, marched forward like she owned the place – which wasn’t that far from the truth, probably. And Parian was the only person on this street who looked like she was meant to be here, walking calmly and looking around.

Vista felt pretty weird, opening the doors of the most important building in her life once again. For the last time in the foreseeable future. After all, there was no place for her here anymore. But the only thing she could do – wanted to do – is just to deal with it.

“Hi, Bruce,” she called out to the guard who at the moment was talking with the manager at the front desk.

And hi, Browbeat. Still the same, huh? Once again I think they could choose a better photo. You probably wouldn’t agree with my decision as well. But I try not to let any more black-and-white photos appear here. Well, at least here…

“Oh, hello, V-” The guard broke off when he turned around. 

“Shit,” Skitter suddenly whispered, and it wasn’t because of the guard reaching out – very quickly – to his gun. Vista guessed she couldn’t care less.

But on the opposite side of the lobby there were teenagers standing and staring at them. A whole class worth of students, probably. And a young-looking teacher behind them, who was also staring, but went pale, unlike her students.

I mean, we both knew that the PRT invested in protecting the insides of the building from one particular Master. It was… months ago, I think. Though I never thought it would be my problem. Just my fucking luck.

We may have come to talk, but who the hell knows… And anyway, none of us want to discuss anything about Echidna or the Nine within earshot of middle or high schoolers.

“Guys, we need…” Vista whispered back.

“I’m thinking,” Skitter swiftly replied.

I mean, I guess we could just come back later…

“Hmm… Skitter, play along,” after a few seconds Parian murmured. “Vista will handle what she needs to. Hey!” She raised her voice and waved to the students. “You got pretty lucky, guys! Today and today only you can get a free autograph from one and only Skitter! If you’re interested, we’ll be standing just outside the building! It will take just a moment, but may be a pleasant memory for years ahead!” And then she, tugging Skitter along, went outside.

Okay, if anything, her voice sounds like it was trained. Or is it the reality of being a retailer?

It took about five and a half seconds for the first student to quickly look around and slowly start moving towards the doors.

***

This day was pretty sunny for a late autumn, so when Skitter and Parian went outside, Parian was content with keeping her gaze down. Besides, her new boots were quite a sight, if she could say so herself, so it was fine to check them out again.

She knew that Skitter was looking straight at her. And silent Skitter was always the scariest one – Parian saw enough things to become convinced in that.

“I mean, it’s not the worst idea we came up with,” Parian muttered, folding her hands.

“...No. It’s really not. Good thinking, Parian,” Skitter admitted. “I only wish that you came up with something else.” She let out a heavy sigh. “Or that it wouldn’t work as well as it apparently did.” She turned her head slightly, looking at the doors. “Seems like all of them are coming.”

“What can I say, I do know some things,” Parian replied, a little shy. “And it is important, getting exposure like this.”

“‘Some people are a bad influence on me’, that’s what you can – and should – say,” Skitter grumbled, though without any real disapproval. “You got a pen, right?”

“Should be in my backpack… One of the important work supplies, after all. Like scissors, I can also stab with it.” Parian smiled.

“Uh-huh. I know you sometimes carry chocolate bars in your backpack.”

“I mean, it is very important, you never watched Harry Potter? I’m sure there is at least one cape who can summon Dementors or something worse. And it is good emergency food.”

***

The teacher was still trying to dissuade her students from following the two villains, though, judging by the expression on her face, she knew she was fighting a battle she couldn’t win. Vista almost decided to say something – the guard she knew looked like he didn’t want to talk anyway – when the door opposite her opened, and Armsmaster, clad in his power armor, entered the room.

The manager pressed the button, obviously. Can’t blame her, fine. I mean, a hero would’ve been needed to be present anyway, probably? 

Thankfully, his halberd is behind his back for now. Though for him to check the cameras and send the feed to his helmet is a piece of cake. No need to start a fight right away.

Vista clenched her fists as Armsmaster came closer, the thug of his footsteps being the only sound in the lobby she could hear. She was sure she understood why exactly villains should be at least wary of him better than most. His imposing figure practically commanded respect – though it was the first time when Vista felt like this only because of his armor. Only because he was actually able to defeat her here.

“Vista,” he said evenly. “What is the meaning of this? And why can’t I arrest you right here and now? I’m sure you’ll name a reason or two.”

“There is one, yes.” Vista tried to be as nonchalantly as possible, even if right now she wanted to be more angry than anything else.

“Mr. Palmer, miss Rossi.” Armsmaster turned his head to the guard and the manager, both still standing near the front desk. “You can take your breaks early.”

What, he expects to hear about something really bad? Or… Doesn’t want them to be caught in a crossfire?.. We are dangerous and stuff, after all.

They didn’t need to be told twice.

“Let’s hear it, then.” He crossed his arms expectantly.

“I’ve been talking to Tattletale,” Vista decided to be straight, “and she actually managed to remind me that there were bounties placed on the members of the Slaughterhouse Nine.”

“Yes.” Armsmaster nodded. “There were, there are, there always will be, on any members. And?”

“I killed Shatterbird. And haven’t yet seen a single penny.” Vista mirrored his pose.

“...Are you sure?” The hero asked unexpectedly.

“I think I’d notice getting richer on a million fucking dollars or so,” Vista replied caustically.

“Strange,” Armsmaster said thoughtfully. “I was one of the official witnesses and signed up to it. A formality it might’ve been, but still.”

“You weren’t the one who… don’t know, signed the order itself?”

“I am the leader of this Protectorate, Vista, as you know. And any financial operations are under the purview of the Parahuman Response Team,” he paused, making a point. “But this bears further investigation. I would be very unhappy to learn that all that money just disappeared into somebody’s pockets,” he muttered.

Yeah, me too. Unhappy. But not really surprised, I guess.

“Thankfully, the first few things I can check are easy to check,” he continued, walking to the computer on the desk.

Vista didn’t say anything, preferring to watch how her former commanding officer was drilling away at the keyboard. He took off one of his gauntlets for that, and that was also an interesting sight – and feel as well: tinkertech was a weird thing in every sense of the word, and sometimes Vista could feel with her power that it was… different.

She wondered if the Wards would be told about this. Vista didn’t feel guilty, of course – god knows, her encounter with Shatterbird wasn’t a walk in the park – but she also knew others thought she didn’t care about money, not really. And now… Well, she actually didn’t… Maybe it was a matter of principle. But certainly a way to help out the city if needed. 

“It’s not all, but I believe I can extrapolate what happened.” Armsmaster said after a few minutes. “There was an order, and it passed. But there were unique circumstances – as far as I’m aware, that was the first time in the history of the Protectorate when a bounty of a significant size had to be paid to a Ward, and an actual teenager at that.” 

Vista was sure she had a twitch in her left cheek for several seconds because she just knew where it was going.

“Seems like the deputy director decided not to set another precedent, since we already had a similar one, even if it was about… much smaller amounts of money. Thus, an agreement was made with your family – your legal guardians – that they will-”

“Spare me the details,” Vista hissed.

Yeah, fighting a dragon I can handle. Work with the police I can handle. But money? I’ll surely stop being a hero right this instant. As if I didn’t earn it through fighting against an A-class threat which was Shatterbird on her own. The IRS would throw a hissy fit or something. I am just a fucking child, after all.

“Very well. They wouldn’t be able to access this bank account without you anyway.” Armsmaster put on his gauntlet and then placed a piece of paper on the edge of the desk. “But since you are acting outside of legal jurisdiction now… Here’s everything you need to assess it.” He straightened out, seemingly thinking that was it.

He just adapted to it, huh. Like me defecting was something a long time coming, like it was obvious. Don’t know how I would have reacted otherwise… But surely better than to this “the new normal” routine.

I don’t want to hear anything. But I also want to hear… something!

Vista sucked air in through her teeth.

One can only wonder how I even lasted more than a week indeed, Tattletale. I guess there was just no right moment for one of my parents to present this as an opportunity for me or use it as a way to sway me. Un-fucking-lucky. 

Maybe I even wouldn’t have needed the Empire stuff to quit – only to realize what was up with all this.

“Every time, every fucking time,” she said with recentment. “Please, do tell me nobody knew how I felt about my family! Nobody thought it might be a bad idea!”

“You are not a ward of the state – though even that would hardly matter. They couldn’t just do that. They acted in accordance with the law,” Armsmaster said evenly. “And we all are at the same position in this regard, Vista. Do not act as if it is everything and everyone against you.”

“Well, it’s fucking shitty that we are, then!” Vista threw up her arms. “Maybe that’s why I joined Skitter!”

She couldn’t see his expression properly, but she saw his lips curl in a pretty familiar way. With that expression she was well acquainted, and not only because of Armsmaster. It made her feel like a living taxidermy specimen – like she was an ordinary object that for some incomprehensible reason started behaving oddly and erratically.

“To be free to commit crimes under the disguise of your noble cause?” Armsmaster grunted, shaking his head. “Tattletale certainly meant something like that when she told you about the bounty, didn’t she? And Skitter certainly wasn’t happy to visit us like this, as if it’s not a blatant show of force by your side,” he paused, but continued before Vista could retort – and she really wanted to. “But you’re here alone at the moment. And despite everything, right now I will say that I am sorry for how things have turned out.”

“Isn’t it a little too late?” Vista replied with as much poison in her voice as possible.

Ah, right. I’m an enemy now. Easy to say whatever and move on.

“You have clearly made your choice. In every sense of the word. So no.”

“Of course. My choice. Something to blame me for. That and things!” Vista exclaimed. “Oh those pesky things! I want to say that I’m sorry too – don’t know for what exactly, but I am, I’m fucking am – but it was something bigger than just things! How about your choices to gain an upper hand in this war?!”

“A good question. After all, unlike me, of course, you don’t do whatever you think is necessary.” Armsmaster crossed his arms over his chest. “One thing you don’t seem to understand is that we have to win this war in such a way so that another wouldn’t start immediately. So that there would be no opportunities for that. And people like you personify the phrase “might makes right” at best.”

“This war… Hell, any war can’t be won through only the right things.” Vista snorted. “Fine. But while you all play this game like that, ordinary people suffer. Couldn’t care less now, but they suffer like Missy Biron did. Probably worse. What good are our laws for then?”

“They are good for our people – people of the United States – to stay at least the way they are.” he said in an unexpectedly tired voice. “We are all at risk: because of villains, because of tragedies, because of natural disasters. But I cannot risk our country and our people as a whole, while you all are content with playing vigilanties and not giving two thirds of a shit about anything else.”

“‘Our people’. Such big words. But hey, it perfectly fits this whole Protectorate leader shtick, right?” Vista bared her teeth in a smile. “Is it like that with all of you big-shots? All your decisions cost actual lives, Armsmaster!”

“I am more than aware of that.”

“And I could help, but you decided to ship me off without a second thought – or, rather, your second thoughts were about how to get some value out of that!”

“Most of it – for you! The best heroes would’ve agreed to teach you, you would get a chance to become even better, and that was one of the things you wanted.”

“To become better so that my city would get better, for it has suffered enough!” Vista hit the desk with her hand in anger. “To be taught by the best because I earned it, because I would finally have some choice! Not to be your bargaining chip after I became inconvenient!”

“You did.” Armsmaster’s voice became noticeably cooler. “You’ve lost the way, Vista. You murder people, you’re suddenly fine with torture and for all your desire for justice you’re fine with the Undersiders. You got caught up in this desire.” He pursed his lips. “We have to see the world in black and white, have to differentiate between good and evil as we do, because otherwise we won’t be heroes. And people like you cannot be allowed to be judges. Much less executioners. Because in the big picture…”

“The big picture is made of little pictures, Armsmaster,” Vista spat. “Behind every white stroke of yours there might be a good thing. Or might be a dead body. Because you refused to listen! Because you all are busy with seeing the big fucking picture! It’s so easy to hide behind statistics!”

“It’s easy to think that statistics will fix themselves because of the little things.”

“But we can… combine it all! We should!..” 

“You already proved that you can’t.”

Vista grimaced, clenching her teeth so hard her jaw hurt.

“I mostly trusted your judgment out there, in fights,” Armsmaster continued in the same tone. “I would even now. But it seems that your judgement before and after them is the problem. So much that you would prefer to fight alongside a warlord. After everything we all have been through.”

“Right, I’m a villain now. I forgot. Not like you lot,” Vista muttered.

“From what I know, Skitter isn’t really pretending to be a hero anymore. Though she tried to claim that once. If you’re fine with joining her senseless crusade, you should stop too. I told you that you are not ready to solve these kinds of problems, and you ran away to be a vigilante. Is that really what you wanted, Vista?” 

“All I wanted was not to let people who don’t deserve to walk the earth go unpunished,” she said quietly, but firmly, looking down. “Unpunished not only because we were weaker or less lucky. Well…” Vista let out a bitter laugh. “To think that I admired you, Armsmaster.”

She slowly took the piece of paper and turned around, walking to the doors without sparing anything else here a second glance. This time she pulled her hood over her helmet.

***

Vista closed the door behind herself and then almost tripped, meeting Lily’s eyes. Her friend, who was just sitting on a crate, breathed a sigh of relief and smiled. Vista, while being tired, after a moment tried to smile back.

“...Not that I don’t wanna see you, Lily, but why…”

“Why am I in our improvised storeroom for weapons we looted? Which I showed you? You mean, this evening, when one of my teammates just wandered off without a word a few hours ago?” Despite her wording, Lily’s tone was lighthearted. “Well, I’m older, so I get to ask this question first, Vista.”

That last part suddenly made Vista feel more at ease than she was the whole day. She absolutely didn’t have enough fight in her for another serious conversation.

“Eh, not for long.” Vista chuckled quietly, walking inside the room. She took off her helmet and put it down on the table to Lily’s right, where was Lily’s own.

“Huh?”

“When I become an adult, we’ll be officially equals in that regard.”

“Well… I’m surprised you believe that we’ll live another… what, five years?” Lily said thoughtfully.

“Hey, you’re supposed to be the one who believes.”

“And I do.” Lily tilted her head, showing a certain gleam in her eyes. “Since when do you?”

“I? Never. Just a joke, obviously.” Vista huffed. “Not my style, right?”

“Yeah, your style is… to be a goth, maybe.”

Vista choked on air, but managed to cough out a laugh.

“So what brings you here?” Lily continued, looking around. “Got no gifts for you today, sorry.”

“Ah, you know, we took a ride recently, and I thought I’d like to check if we have anything to help us deal with cars like our own, at least. Or with armored vehicles.”

“You could always shoot the tires…”

“Oh, really? Have you tried that recently – or ever?”

“Sure. Even successfully. Though they were front tires, since my bolt went right through that car’s body.” Lily shrugged.

“...My bullets can’t do that.” 

Lily fought down her impulse to pinch Missy’s cheeks or do something similar since she was looking unusually cute with this pout crossing her face. 

“Then I’m pretty sure you won’t find anything with bullets that can here. Though we can look around.”

Lily was sure Vista knew that was a permission for her to actually look around, and she knew that Vista knew she didn’t need permission, but…

“Hmm,” Vista muttered after several seconds of staring at everything around. “You know what I think?”

“Do tell.”

“There are a lot of memories here.” She caught Lily’s surprised gaze. “I mean, like… even for you, since you joined the team later, even for me! It’s not like PRT’s armory – well, obviously. And that one’s damn cool, but here…” Vista stepped closer to one of the crates to the side and moved the lid. “See, for example: P2000s… quite a lot of them. Designed by Heckler and Koch – pretty obvious whose humanitarian help they were, right?” Vista went on. “And here we have… containment foam sprayers. To be expected, I guess. Though I prefer grenades to these flamethrower-looking things. Oh-h-h, is this a SCAR? Shit, this is some top stuff, and a new product as well… That was some rich guy, I guess.” She glanced at Lily, but her friend only waved her hand. “Glock-17s, uh-huh, a classic never gets old… Could be pretty much anyone, to be honest, but these few in particular look like they’ve been taken from the Merchants, my god. It breaks my heart just looking at them.” Vista sighed. “Oh, these are… weird. Wait, what the hell’s these, on the wall?”

“Trophies from Coil’s mercenaries,” Lily replied after she took a closer look. “Modded rifles with tinkertech stu- no,” she hurried to prevent Vista from coming up with anything and even put a hand on her shoulder, “we are not going to test them out, and I just won’t let you touch tinkertech that was lying here for, like, months.”

“Such a party pooper.”

“Fifty percent chance they will explode if you try to use them. At least. Trust me, I’ve seen some shit with tinkertech back in New York.”

“You’re saying it like we usually have better chances.” Vista snorted and looked down.

Lily was a little reluctant, but she allowed herself to stand alongside Vista and gently hug her with one arm.

“Believe me, I’m perfectly content with listening to you babble about weapons for as long as you want. I always kinda liked it. But if – if – you want, I can also say ‘a penny for your thoughts?’. Actual ones.”

“And if not?” Vista asked quietly.

“I told you a story about how I got that Desert Eagle, but there are a few more stories related to the contents of this room that I know…” Lily said evenly.

“I mean, I feel… not that bad, really.” Vista tried to keep her voice just as even.

“...Good.” Vista felt Lily pressing closer as her friend replied. “Taylor apparently decided to give you space. But Sabah was worried. And so was I, to be honest. Oh, by the way, Taylor also said she clarified… whatever it was you mentioned to Tattletale, so you shouldn’t worry.”

“Shi-i-i-it.” Vista drawled, letting out a sigh and unwittingly putting her head on Lily’s shoulder. “I… I don’t need a million bucks, of course… I told Tattletale after we found out that I wanted to donate some of it to the city, but didn’t know how… with being a villain and all… Fuck,” she groaned. “I forgot! All that fucking talk… Now I failed her too.” 

“You did not.”

“Didn’t I? They came to help me, and I…”

“God knows Taylor understands how… frustrating it can be. Shall I remind you that I chose not to engage in talking at all when I left?”

“No, Lily. That I remember quite well.”

“Damn it. I’m still not the best at this, am I?” Lily sighed, absentmindedly tapping Vista’s shoulder piece.

“Nope. But still good enough. Remember the first time?”

“To be honest, I’m not sure what you consider to be the first time.” Lily smiled. “When you almost got crushed under a building?”

“...No. Remember, when Shadow Stalker laughed at me. ‘Cause of my crush,” Vista murmured. “That evening you looked at me and shared your cookies with me. We didn’t really talk about it… But that was nice.”

“I’d do the same now, if I was Flechette.” Lily said thoughtfully. “But I’m not anymore. So I will say that everything’s fine. And I will say that you’re allowed to make mistakes, especially in your circumstances.”

Vista mumbled something incomprehensible. Lily shook her head and stood in front of her, carefully placing her hands on Vista’s shoulders. She had to wait a few seconds until Vista raised her head and met her gaze.

“You don’t need to be the best in order to be accepted.” Lily said firmly. “Not here. Not with us. Especially not with us. It won’t stop you from trying, but I will be here to tell you this every time. We’ll be here to order pizza, to listen and not to treat this as your fuck-up and write a reprimand in your file. I promise.”

“I…” Vista winced. “I wanted to say something that would insult you,” she admitted quietly. “Don’t want to. I appreciate it.”

“Yeah.” Lily smiled sadly. “I promised something similar once, I know. But now I have all the time in the world to make amends. Actually, I already figured out a way to cheer you up! You never got to shoot from my crossbow before, right?”

“...I asked you once.”

“And I was too afraid to risk being caught with anything even remotely looking like a violation of the rules, because they already took my sword away,” Lily muttered. “But fuck them.”

“A fear like that I get. Really.” Vista smiled back weakly. “That would be cool. Even if it’s not tinkertech.” She chuckled. “Though I think you won’t be too happy to lend me your weapon every time I want to… you know, wander off.”

“Nonsense. Besides, it would be great to have another person who can use it. Won’t be hard for you to become decent at it, I’m sure. And without any cheats like my power.”

“Looking forward to trying it out, then.”

Lily grinned and hugged Vista tightly.

“Sabah made you such a sap,” Vista murmured, putting her arms around Lily as well.

“And I don’t see anything wrong with that,” Lily answered contentedly.

“Makes me wonder just how much money you would spend on flowers and jewelry – maybe high-quality fabrics – if you got a million dollars.”

“As opposed to your plans to buy a tank?” Lily quipped.

“...Not a bad idea, actually.” Vista laughed quietly. “But for now I’ll just try to do something good with it. Don’t know if I’ll succeed, but…”

“You will,” Lily said confidently. “No matter how I feel about it, you always tried to do something good. And I think it’s safe to say you never really failed. Well, I think that. I mean, even now you want to spend money on the place that mostly brought you misery.”

“Guess I’ll have to believe you, Lily. Thanks.”

Chapter Text

Vista felt weirdly tired.

Maybe it was how her days usually went after morning patrols, but Vista didn’t remember it being like that. Especially since her patrol today was really easy – only one common mugging. And she didn’t even have any nightmares last night… Though her sleep was frustratingly uneasy. 

On the other hand, maybe she should’ve been thankful to her own mind for letting her actually sleep instead of continuing pondering yesterday’s visit to the PRT headquarters. She already did quite enough of that. 

Humming to the faint music – Vista didn’t have any speakers and wasn’t sure she needed them, so she just played music on her phone – she washed her face and hands with pleasantly hot water and left the bathroom. Vista knew she had to get the groceries, but she was sure she had enough to make some sandwiches. And this surely was the morning for sandwiches. It was probably already day time, actually, but whatever.

Vista stopped dead in her tracks at the kitchen entrance when she noticed a person outside her big and clear – to which she wasn’t still accustomed – windows. Fortunately, before she decided to pull out her gun, she noticed the familiar features… And the way the intruder smiled at the sight and loudly knocked on the glass.

Shaking her head, Vista compressed the room and reached out to the window, unlocking it. Blinking because of the rush of cold air, she sighed as Aisha closed the window behind her and entered the kitchen.

“Hell, that looked fucking weird. Reminded me of Labyrinth.” Aisha paused. “Though no, your powers don’t make me think that monsters will start crawling from inside the walls.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Vista pursed her lips. “What the fuck were you doing on my windowsill?”

“Wanted to surprise you!” Aisha waved her hands. “But you, as it turned out, keep your windows locked, even though you live on the third floor!” She looked at Vista and pouted.

“It’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you,” Vista muttered with a hint of irony, fully aware of, at least, some of her habits. Which did not at all mean she would stop – not in this city. “Also, yes, how did you even get here?”

“You have a nice big tree outside.” Aisha pointed her finger behind her back.

Vista let out a heavy sigh.

“I hope nobody saw you,” she said, accepting the current events.

“Even if somebody did, they’ll forget about it in a few seconds.” Aisha shrugged. “Hmm…” She turned her head to the tabletop and started tapping her foot to the rhythm of the music. “No one ever lied straight to your face,” she hummed, repeating what she heard, “No one ever stabbed you in the back, You might think I’m happy, but I’m not gonna be oka-” Aisha broke off when Vista grabbed her phone and lowered the volume swiftly. “Heh. A little bit on the nose, don’t you think?” 

“What do you mean?” Vista asked sincerely, raising her eyebrows. “I like a song, I listen to it,” she said quietly, a little embarrassed – usually her musical taste stayed between her and her headphones.

“Ah, forget it. So!” Aisha exclaimed. “I’m here to make you actually leave your place without a mask like a normal person! And I don’t take ‘no’ as an answer, Missy! So get your ass dressed!” She met Vista’s eyes, who was silently watching her. “...I’ll wait? And don’t waste half an hour on choosing what to wear?” she said less confidently.

Only now Vista actually took a look at Aisha’s attire: white-and-purple jacket, leggings, pretty nice shoes – nicer than anything Vista ever owned… Overall, it obviously wasn’t the spider-silk bodysuit. And the purple strand of hair on her forehead still was strangely endearing.

“Uh-huh. And what made you think I’m gonna agree?” Vista crossed her arms over her chest, not moving an inch.

Did somebody put her up to this or…

“If I say I had a vision, will you believe me?”

“I honestly wouldn’t be really surprised,” Vista admitted. “Well, would be surprised about me doing that in the vision.”

“Kid Cassandra said that aside from maybe a dozen obvious things, hundreds of other things are almost equally possible,” Aisha said, grinning. “Though I’d say this is the obvious one. You could decide to squeeze mayonnaise into a hamster or something…” she broke off, noticing how Vista frowned slightly.

Cassan… Dinah. Right. Another person with whom I should talk. Maybe not even about all that happened, just… talk. Me leaving was always a possibility, right? A small one, of course. But then… 

“Missy?” Aisha tilted her head questioningly.

“You know Dinah?”

“I mean, not really… Saw her a few times, asked what are the chances for me to kill the President on my own…” Aisha chuckled, noticing Vista’s expression. “Hey, it would be quite a feat! Though she didn’t give a clear answer, ‘cause of all the Thinkers or something like that, but it was a possibility!”

“You know, I am a little worried about you guys thinking about threatening the government more often than… never.”

“Comes with the territory.” Aisha shrugged nonchalantly. 

“...Maybe, I guess,” Vista grunted.

“I mean, haven't you, like, become a criminal since you joined us? ‘Cause you hated how this government organisation of yours was doing things?”

“Justice is the goal, Aisha.” Vista shook her head. “Suicide is not. And that’s exactly what it’ll be. After all, you guys prefer not to fight the PRT more than necessary, right?”

“I suppose… Though maybe the tiniest bit more than the necessary amount, but yeah.” Aisha smirked. “Also, I know how these talks go with people like you or Tay, so let’s stop right now before we end up arguing about morals or ideals or laws or whatever.” She pointed at Vista. “Ease up, girl!”

“As if that will make those things and my opinions on them disappear.”

“Yes! Well, no, obviously, but you’ll feel less shitty! Just go outside, look at the streets like we all do, have some fun. In no way that can make things worse!”

“And what if something happens while I’m looking at the streets not from a rooftop?” Vista said evenly, knowing that not a lot of people would probably answer that like she did.

“My god.” Aisha sighed and moved closer to Vista. “Then I’ll tell this to your face as well: the more you think like this, the more are the chances that tomorrow other people die ‘cause you already did!” She jabbed her finger at Vista. “You’re a hero, you don’t wanna fuck up, I get it, so you have to be in a good shape, and for that you shouldn’t think about how you can fuck up all the time!”

I try.

“Sounds so simple,” Vista replied bitterly.

“It is,” Aisha’s tone became warmer. “It’s just you people always like to overcomplicate it. Big damn heroes. Don’t you ever get tired from carrying around that shiny metal stick up your asses?”

Vista, taken aback for a second, only huffed.

“Yep!” Aisha replied to that, nodding.

“...We do that for a reason. And I’m sure you know that.”

“Yeah, unfortunately.” Aisha blew a raspberry. “Then, I guess, that wasn’t the last time you called me to talk just ‘cause you were feeling down, huh?”

Vista shamefully lowered her gaze.

Maybe. Maybe not. I doubt that something just as bad as was the day I left the PRT will happen soon – I fucking hope so. I won’t be that fucked up. 

But… Even if we talked not for really long and about somethings and nothings, it helped. You helped. 

Did I say that to you? Don’t remember those few hours very well. Should I say?

“You need only to say something for that to become the last time,” she muttered, trying to keep her voice steady.

“I mean, I can…” Aisha shrugged, and then went past Vista to the corridor, almost imperceptibly touching Vista’s shoulder with her own. “But I didn’t yet, right?” she said louder when Vista lost sight of her. “Hope we’re done now!” Aisha continued cheerfully. “So, are all your clothes also green?”

We are not. …But I’m also willing to postpone this. 

“Just so you know,” Vista easily caught up with Aisha, and they entered the main room together, “I have some strong opinions about that color, so no. Never. Also, next time phone first.”

“Before you shoot me by mistake?” Aisha chuckled.

“Yes!”

“Alright, alright…”

Vista didn’t really have a lot of stuff, but she made an effort to make her apartment look like it was… well, her own. Even if her favorite wool blanket clashed with the style of the sofa and the whole room, near the table there were two stacks of books, because there were not enough shelves for now, and the big table that she moved to the side became her improvised workbench. 

Thankfully, no one yet saw how the nightstand in her bedroom was slowly filling up with medical supplies – and anyway, it wasn’t her fault that the most comfortable mirror in the apartment was there.

“I…” Vista broke off, looking at her home clothes with a frown. “One minute. I’ll find something.”

Vista walked to the large wardrobe which probably would never be filled completely, opened it and, after a moment, stepped behind its door: maybe she didn’t have a modesty problem – couldn’t have one with her life, honestly – but still, it would be… weird.

“I’m not criticizing, but do you really need your armor and weapons out in the open like that?” Aisha asked. “I doubt that even most of the villains have them just lying around!”

“A weapon you can’t get to is no weapon at all!” Vista replied with a small smile, trying to choose between the three of her dark blue shirts. “Though actually on the table there are those I need to do something with! Those I could use right now are in my cloak’s pockets! But it is right there on the wall as well, so…”

And in the pocket of my pants as well, yeah.

“Fair enough!” Aisha’s voice became a little louder, indicating that she started walking inside the room. “Though I have a feeling that somebody here is overcompensating! The people in suits didn’t allow this hard-boiled hero to carry lots of big’n scary weapons, did they?”

Vista suddenly caught herself blushing, because she knew she was doing just that. Of course, there were objective reasons – and not enough downsides, since she had her own place – but…

“Can you blame me?”

“Hell no! I mean, if you’re cool, you gotta do cool stuff, and this… is pretty cool. At least, it’s cool if you could actually use them, but I saw first-hand that you can!” Aisha laughed. “Hey, do you know how to use a rocket launcher?”

“Eh-h-h… Theoretically? It’s easier than it seems. Doubt I can handle it, though.”

“Then we’ll get back to that,” Aisha muttered, nodding to herself.

Among other things, Vista also knew very well that everything she knew about style and fashion came from Victoria and somehow stuck in her brain, so she didn’t expect anything, really. But she would be lying to herself if she said she didn’t feel… warmer when she stepped to the center of the room, and Aisha, clearly checking her out, smiled at the corner of her mouth.

“Good enough?” Vista asked evenly, putting her black coat on.

“Considering that I expected…” Aisha tapped her cheek thoughtfully. “I dunno, you putting some old jacket on after your armor… Yay, I guess. Gray trousers, red scarf… More effort than I thought you could put into it.” She chuckled.

“Don’t make me regret it before we even go outside,” Vista grunted, turning to the window. Despite it being a stupid idea on many levels, she did consider getting out with the help of her powers.

“Don’t be all sulky,” Aisha retorted.

“Maybe I wanted to be sulky today.” Vista pursed her lips, moving to the window close enough to see the actual street. “I don’t like surprises, Aisha.”

“What, I ruined your sadness schedule?” Aisha stood to Vista’s side. “That was the point, though!”

“At least have the decency to be sorry for not letting me have my daily quota of self-pity.” Vista rolled her eyes, not admitting outright that Aisha was somewhat succeeding all this time. 

“As if.” Aisha snorted. “You seem exactly like the person who doesn’t know what self-pity is.”

“Do I now?”

“Remember when we three talked after you joined us? ‘Cause I do. ‘Want to hear the whole sob story?’ ‘This way out is for the weak.’” Aisha shook her head. “‘If you have nothing more important to do.’ For a person who can do such great shit, you say so much bullshit. Your freaking video message which was all about you being glad to be able to sacrifice more or something.”

Vista didn’t say anything, looking at the passing cars.

“But, thankfully, you idiots have the great me!” Aisha continued and confidently raised a finger. “...And you’re also cute, which is a plus.”

It’s hardly worth it, Aisha. …Though you are cute as well. Huh, if only I knew what it meant.

“Snow…” Vista said quietly after several seconds, ending the discussion.

“Eh, this year’s really warm. Doubt it’ll last ‘till the evening.”

“Yeah, probably. Do you like it?” 

Vista didn’t really know why she asked the question. Maybe because she never really asked it herself – never really had the time to look at the window. After all, despite their winters being warm, the activity on the streets usually was lower, so Vista just spent more of her time on useful things. And usually there was no one near her to answer this question when she stood near the window – certainly not her parents.

“I guess?” Aisha said thoughtfully. “I would really like to see actual snow, like in Canada, not this… as Lisa would say, pale imitation. I never got to build a proper snowman in my life, can you imagine?!”

“And I guess I never thought about it. A season’s a season. Snow is just one of the differences of winter. Makes driving harder, makes footprints easier to see…”

“Ever tracked someone like that?” Aisha asked, interested.

“A few times… Well, wanted to. Or watched how other heroes did it.” Vista sighed.

“Not to worry, Sherlock, you’ll get your chance.” Aisha laughed and patted Vista’s shoulder. “Maybe some other drug dealers get here… Win-win: I’ll fuck them up, you’ll get to play detective a little!”

Hmm. Brockton Bay is certainly big enough to attract all sorts of… people constantly. It’s certainly possible.

“It’s a deal, Aisha.” 

“Okay! So, we’re going or what? If two people are alone in the room, they should undress, and not the other way around!”

“Let’s go,” Vista turned around and started walking without dignifying the last part with a response. “Also, Aisha…” Vista glanced at her over her shoulder. “Thank you. For all that.” She brushed her hand across the surface of the table, grabbing the pieces of her armor that immediately shrunk, and walked out of the room.

Aisha smirked, then with a little sigh looked at one of the handguns on the table – it was fancy enough so that she wanted to grab it, but Vista certainly wouldn’t be happy – and with a graceful stride followed her companion.

It felt a little weird walking through the streets without her armor… and not alone. Vista was sure it has been at least a year since she walked about with someone else like that – the Wards usually spent their time together on patrols and inside the headquarters, and she, of course, couldn’t just walk into Arcadia.

Some could probably say the surrounding scenery wasn’t exactly a wonderful sight, but Vista really enjoyed seeing her city… peaceful. Covered with snow and not smoke. And if Vista had to be honest, Aisha alongside her – and Aisha’s chatter – didn’t make things worse. Though she totally would if they were working, but they weren’t.

Vista was content with just following Aisha – after all, this whole thing was her idea, but she didn’t expect them to stop near the strange bright sign with the depiction of a flamingo. The little bell rang when they walked in.

“To be honest, I expected… I don’t know what, but not this,” Vista said thoughtfully, looking around and following Aisha to a table in the corner. Actually, this cafe looked exactly like something called “cafe” should’ve looked like in a book: not a big amount of space, warm colors all around, simple wooden furniture, the lighting that wasn’t blinding… And not a lot of visitors.

“Wanted a big luxurious restaurant?” Aisha raised her eyebrows. “Fuck those. Having to dress up and make faces for an opportunity to eat the same food, but five times more expensive? Thanks, but no thanks!”

“...I like you a little more now.” Vista chuckled. “Honestly, fuck those. Always hated those places. And how people there behave.”

“Been there a lot?”

“Not a lot, but enough times to realise that it’s not my thing at all.”

“Well, next time we can go to Fugly Bob, if you dig that.” Aisha shrugged her shoulders and sat down.

Next time? Hmpf, somebody’s optimistic. We’ll see.

“Just so you know,” Vista sat down opposite her, “I can eat, like, anything. I usually ate at their cafeteria,” she lowered her voice, “and they provided… eh-h… a pretty balanced diet. But if you’re tired, you just get whatever’s in stock, without really caring. Doesn’t mean I don’t adore tasty food – damn I like Fugly Bob’s shrimps – but… yeah. Anything,” Vista paused for a moment. “Except olives.”

“Bleh. Olives,” Aisha said that word as if it was poisonous. “Sometimes I think my brother and Lisa pretend to eat them like normal food just to fuck with me.”

Vista without thinking held out her hand, and Aisha high-fived her. Vista slowly blinked, being used to that mostly with Dennis and Jill, but still decided to answer to Aisha’s smirk with her own smile.

Ordering sandwiches in a cafe seemed stupid, so Vista decided on some Belgian waffles with berries – not her usual comfort food, but close enough. Aisha, scratching her chin at that, ordered an apple pie.

“We’re like in a movie,” Aisha started after the waiter brought them their food. “A nice place, some deserts…”

“Well, our t… group of friends are respectable people, are we not?” Vista arched her eyebrow. “I’m not about to buy a beer and some peanuts, anyway.”

“Now that’s arguable.” Aisha chuckled. “Don’t know about you, but I’m hardly used to this. You said you hate this stuff, but you actually… saw it, right?”

Hmm, this place is unusual for her too?

“From the sidelines, I guess.” Vista grimaced. “Had to look good for the cameras, to be a good-quiet-smart-pretty-whatever girl, since the organization has a reputation to uphold… Always be ready to say ‘sir, yes, sir, we will protect the high values’ or something.”

“Sounds miserable,” Aisha commented. “But so much stuff to do for shits and giggles with such people…”

“And was even worse,” Vista grunted. “Usually one of my friends did all the mingling. But hey, I had a pretty much perfect record, so I usually was present as well, unlike some people who couldn’t work like a clock.”

And, of course, I usually was fine with watching Dean mingling. He looked at ease there, like he belonged in those dinners and gala events. Imagined standing with him arm in arm… Yeah, it’s been a long time. 

We’re on different sides now, and I don’t regret that. And, obviously, it was a hopeless crush. A nice one… A somewhat painful one. But still. Also a little bit disrespectful to Victoria, though they are on break nowadays – long one as well.

“A few successful pranks would’ve changed that, just saying.” Aisha smiled. “With your skills, you absolutely could paint Halbeard’s bike pink.”

With every passing day this idea seems more and more appealing.

“That wouldn’t help me serve the cause better. And that’s what I wanted,” Vista said thoughtfully, staring at the berry in her fingers. “You could say I didn’t yet learn how much my efforts and arguments didn’t matter in comparison to my age and the rules. Though I did envy Clock a little.” 

“You learned now, then?” Aisha tilted her head.

“I’m here with you, right? Trying to create some better memories about such places.” Vista smiled wryly.

“Good for you. I get’cha, people bad there, but great food is always… great. Heh. Besides, it’s a nice place, comfy, with music in the background and stuff…” Aisha mused, twirling a fork in her hand.

“Wanna me to be honest?” 

“Sure, whatever.”

“The last time I was in such a place, I painted the floor with Shatterbird’s blood and almost got the same treatment thanks to the glass in that cafe’s windows,” Vista said evenly, as if reminiscing. “After I killed her, I slipped on mustard on the floor near the exit – when most of the building crushed – fell and spent a minute just lying in it because I was completely worn out. And maybe injured,” she muttered the last sentence. “Kinda hate its smell now, by the way.”

An uncomfortable silence settled between them for a moment, and Vista started to regret telling all that – being relaxed enough to tell that. But unexpectedly, Aisha let out a heavy sigh, put the money on the table – Vista noted that there was more than enough for both their orders – and nodded to herself with a strange resolve in her eyes.

“I won’t admit that it was my mistake,” Aisha drawled, “‘cause it wasn’t, but probably I should’ve known the usual stuff wouldn’t make the cut. You’re not an ordinary person, after all.”

“...Huh?”

“We’re leaving.”

“But… Wait, I mean…” Vista frowned, struggling to find the words.

Fuck, did I mess it up just like that?..

“You should decide where we’ll go, yeah.” Aisha said. “I guess I should’ve asked, but anyway, we don’t want you to freak out suddenly or something…”

“I do not!..”

“Any ideas about a place you actually don’t hate?” Aisha looked at her expectantly.

“Really?”

“Yeah?” Aisha shrugged. “I’m not here to… dunno, spook and blackmail you, am I?” She snorted. “We have time to find something else.”

“...I don’t really get you, I think,” Vista muttered, standing up.

“Well, at least sometimes I also should get the opportunity to be all cool and mysterious!”

“Not exactly my point, but…” Vista sighed.

What is my point, though?

I’m still here. Still with her. Sure, I am inexperienced, but I was asked out a few times, and I never was interested. Not only due to having a crush.

Vista didn’t really notice how she turned around and started walking.

Is it because we actually fought together? An ally’s an ally, that I learned because of the Undersiders quite some time ago. Because she seems to care not only about my looks? Whatever she says – and, ha-ha, my looks. Or, maybe… Maybe. Maybe she’s just similar. Not several years older. A cape. Not… Ugh, taken.

Maybe I shouldn’t be like my former superiors and ask.

Vista snapped to reality when she suddenly felt a warm and relatively strong grip on her wrist. She blinked, wincing from the gust of wind.

“Missy, goddammit!” Aisha said in an annoyed tone. “I’m not Lisa, I can’t… you know.” She rolled her eyes. “At least, you- What the hell’s wrong with your hand?” Aisha asked abruptly. “The blood…”

“Ah, right.” Vista looked down at the back of her hand. “One of the reasons why I don’t particularly care for winter instead of liking it or something.”

“...What?”

“Allergy to cold. The skin is cracking. Usually I have my amazing gauntlets, but…”

Aisha stared at Vista’s hand for a moment, then huffed and for some reason covered it with her own.

“Fucking hell, buy a pair of gloves, I won’t be around all the time.”

“My knight in shining silk,” Vista deadpanned, quickly pulling her hand away. “I won’t die, don’t worry. Let’s go. I think I know a good place… If you insist.”

“Uh-huh, you all say that,” Aisha grumbled quietly, following Vista, “but then it turns out you’re fucking blind and forgot to tell anybody. Never a moment to relax with y’all.”

From Vista’s point of view, parks in winter looked pretty beautiful as well – different, maybe, but still. The snowy glades were nice and peaceful, there was not enough snow to be a nuisance, and the trees were certainly looking better now than a week ago with their white coating. And even the same fat ducks were still waddling by one of the ponds. It felt almost like a different world. Vista briefly wondered if Earth Aleph was actually calmer and quieter than her own Earth in its day-to-day life.

Aisha, judging by her glances, wasn’t enjoying it just as much, but looked interested enough – if Vista had to guess, Imp or whoever else from the Undersiders didn’t really visit such places. Well, except Bitch, probably. 

Fortunately, the usual ice-cream stand was still around. Even more fortunately, so to speak, there was no Amy to tell Vista and Victoria that it'd be foolish… And Aisha’s challenging, but satisfied look told her that she would also be absolutely fine with that. And, maybe, this was foolish, but Vista was fairly confident in her health in this regard… And she had an unexpected desire to just not give a fuck.

Though any smallest bits of possible romance disappeared when Aisha bought a pistachio ice cream, earning herself a side-eye from Vista, who, being a sane person, bought the strawberry one.

Eventually they stopped to sit down on a bench in front of another pond. They both started to clear the snow from their own halves of the bench, before Aisha suddenly stopped, made an unhappy face and silently gestured towards the wooden slats. Vista mentally admitted she had a point, since there was no one around, and for a second made the slats extremely thin, letting the snow fall down. They sat down.

Vista let herself lean back and close her eyes, breathing deeply. Hearing Aisha doing the same, she smiled. Maybe, she chose this place unconsciously just as consciously – a place where she would be relatively comfortable. And thanks to Aisha, it was easy to justify just sitting here… It was her idea to go out in the first place, after all.

It felt weird, having time to do something like this. Whenever she went out with her friends, she would never waste time in this way – it happened rarely enough as it is.

“Hey, Aisha.”

“Hmm?”

“Can I ask a question?”

“Shoot.”

“Why…” Vista let out a sigh, gathering her thoughts. “Why are you doing this?”

“What?”

“Act like… you like me or something. I am reasonably sure I’m not really worth it, but even if I was, for what? For my slightly-above-average ass? Don’t think so.”

“You have a great ass, I think…” Aisha murmured absentmindedly. “Though I’d need a hands-on inspection just to be su-” She broke off when Vista opened her eyes and glared at her. “Damn it, you already dragged me all the way here, do we also need to talk about stuff?” Aisha waved her hand.

“It’s serious for me,” Vista replied quietly. “Or it seems to be. So yes.”

“What a drag…” Aisha shook her head.

“And taking me out isn’t?” Vista raised her eyebrow.

“Not until we have to talk about such things. Nothing really even happened yet!”

“Well… Yeah,” Vista grunted. “Shouldn’t something happen first, though?”

“Why? I see somebody cute, I ask ‘em out, what’s wrong with that? I mean, what else?..”

“Cute?” Vista repeated uncertainly – this time the word seemed to hold some meaning. “Weird to hear it from somebody… like you.”

“What do you mean?” 

“You are… conventionally attractive. It’s obvious.”

“What, and you’re not?” Aisha smiled wryly.

“I can’t remember a time when I liked looking at the mirror,” Vista said evenly, unwittingly touching the scar on her cheek.

“Maybe I have a thing for scars,” Aisha laughed.

“That’s it?” Vista asked incredulously. “Like, no pure feelings? You know, with butterflies inside and all that?”

“You can ask Taylor for that.”

“Shit, that’s actually quite terrifying. Okay, but still…”

“Come on, did you have an amazing first love experience or something? It’s all bullshit.”

“…I did not,” Vista forced herself to answer.

“It was probably a crush, you felt stupid, moved on…” Aisha listed in a humorous tone.

“Since when did you become so smart, Aisha?” Vista scoffed.

“Always were!” She smirked. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

Wonder if she ever had a crush like that.

“But what about, for example, Lily and Sabah?”

“What about them? Sure, I don’t know what Lily was doing before joining, but Sabah said she was quite nervous about that whole thing, considering all that shit with Bonesaw’s fuckery and other stuff, and they didn’t not, like, fall in love when they first met, not all sunshine and rainbows, right? And even after, I do know, for example, they had a fight ‘cause Lily wanted to be Parian’s right hand at first, which is not the same as being an Undersider – well, Tats made a point on that, and Sabah felt indebted to Taylor, so…” Aisha unexpectedly trailed off, looking down.

Vista reflexively held out her hand, hovering somewhere near Aisha’s shoulder, but didn’t touch her. Yet she did move closer.

“Okay, you asked about being honest, want me to be?” Aisha sighed.

“Always will want to,” Vista said sincerely.

“Well… Here’s your fucking reasons: you’re cool, like, tough, so I’d have to worry only about you dying because you decided to be a noble hero, and you have fucking amazing powers, and… You had the balls to stay even if it meant leaving your big superhero boysband. So, maybe, if push comes to shove, you’ll stay next time as well,” she said, suddenly a little sad.

“What do you mean?” Vista asked in a serious voice.

“Sounds crazy, but when we were discussing that, Lisa and Rachel agreed with each other that you joining means some things changed. And we were talking and talking… And… some of us were fine with the idea of cutting our losses if needs must, you know what I mean,” Aisha grunted, frowning. “Sure, it’s nice to fly to Florida or something, but damn it, I’m Imp! I don’t wanna lie on a coach or sunbathe and sip smoothies! And yeah, obviously we’ll fight if we’ll be attacked just like that or if they hurt one of us, but… Fu-u-uck,” she drawled. “Fuck this whole situation. Well, I’m not talking about you,” she glanced at Vista, who was completely silent. “You… Taylor said you decided to leave the PRT because you, among other things, wouldn’t leave. So, you know… Would be nice to be sure you’ll stay with us.”

And with you, right, Aisha? That I’ll stay and won’t run away if Myrddin or Legend come to scare us. I mean, there’s a lot of things that could happen… But I really doubt that I’ll have to doubt this particular decision.

Or rather, because of that she thinks that I will stay… Right? And that is one of the reasons why. Well…

“I always intend to fight ‘till the very end, Aisha. That I can promise.”

Aisha perked up at that. After a moment of contemplation, she let out an unusually cheerful smile.

“Does it mean ‘yes’, though?” She made herself more comfortable and turned to Vista fully.

Vista could not help but be surprised how quickly Aisha’s visible frustration washed away.

“I don’t know what exactly you’re talking about, but probably not.” 

“Hard to get, aren’t you?” Aisha grinned.

“Foolish, more like.” Vista chuckled self-deprecatingly. “Guess I kinda believed in love at the first glance or something like that. Still do.”

“We’re capes, we don’t get to have that.” Aisha shrugged calmly. “Though it’s really bullshit, I’m sure. And otherwise it’s more fun anyway.”

“...Listening to you, one could think everything is more fun with you.” Vista smiled.

“Well, smart-ass, tell me what was so great – and more fun – in the PRT that you miss right now. Nobody took you out for some waffles, hmm? Nobody got you a nice pricey camera for your big video message?” 

“Fine, fine, you’re right about that. But actually, several things are just different… Oh, wait, I know what I really won’t miss. Writing reports about getting shot. Never again.” Vista winced.

“Those are, like, hard?” Aisha raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah. Long, hard… I was a Ward, after all. I made a template eventually, but still.”

“Maybe you just get shot too much,” Aisha snickered.

Vista only sighed – that certainly wouldn’t change with her leaving the PRT, quite the contrary.

“By the way, you’re one crazy gal.” Aisha nodded excitedly. “I mean, if you didn’t know yet. But it would be boring otherwise!”

“One thing our life isn’t is boring…”

They fell silent for a moment.

“Speaking of fun, you know, we should totally have a snowball fight,” Aisha said thoughtfully, a little bit quieter than her usual volume.

“Not enough snow, I think.” Vista didn’t even want to turn her down.

“Eh, you can change that, probably. Wait, no, we can build a snow fortress and you can make the size of a real fortress!”

“...Huh.”

“Awesome, right?!”

“I mean, people would like that, probably… The PRT wouldn’t.”

Aisha simply snorted.

“Yeah, that’s what I actually thought as well. Hmm. I guess I gotta do some research about building from snow… But later.” Vista stood up. “Aisha… I… Well, it wasn’t really… romantic or something – and I didn’t intend it to be, but…”

“Oh god, don’t be… like that.” Aisha stood up as well. 

“No, no, I mean… It was nice,” Vista admitted. “Because I got to actually listen to you, I mean. Thankfully, you didn’t try to take me to an amusement park or something.”

“I thought about that…”

“Don’t. Please.”

“Yeah, I too think we see more funny stuff as Undersiders. So?” Aisha looked at her expectantly.

Vista could guess what her companion was thinking about. Or imagining. Or just remembering what usually happened in movies in such moments.

“I stand by what I said, Aisha,” Vista murmured. “Hardly your best decision. And I would hate to be sorry eventually. If there’d be something to be sorry for.” 

Their eyes met, and Vista felt a little warmer, seeing Aisha’s stubborn gaze – the same one she had when she told Vista ‘we’ll break through somehow’. Maybe Aisha even meant something like this. 

“But,” Vista continued quietly, “I think I should ask if you want to walk me home. You did like to travel through the city with Vista, right?”

“Actually, I really did,” this time Aisha’s smile felt a little bit more tender and exposed. “And you still don’t have any gloves.” She glanced at Vista’s hand. “Taylor would be so upset if I’d let you… impair… your combat capabilities.” She smirked.

“I don’t think it really matters-” Vista heard Aisha’s sigh, “but you might be right. Still have a patrol in the evening, after all.”

“I had no doubts,” Aisha muttered with an obvious note of sarcasm.

Chapter Text

It was hard to believe, but this morning was relatively quiet. Vista liked it. Well, she liked that it meant she could – after she went on a patrol, of course – hang out with Lily in Sabah’s shop. Considering that the shop was closed, because Sabah needed to process some goods, and Taylor needed to discuss something with her, all of them could talk without the masks. 

According to Lily, now Vista with her and Lisa was in the elite club of those whose mouth was not covered, and their voices could be heard properly. Vista didn’t think it changed anything, but it was a little bit cool nonetheless. At the very least, she could talk however the hell she wanted, not giving a shit about guidelines – and her voice was in dozens of videos anyway.

Though Vista wouldn’t object to using the element of fear like Skitter or Grue did with their masks…

In any case, seeing her teammates’ actual faces made Vista more comfortable. Maybe she didn’t really make a distinction, but she liked seeing her friends returning to their ordinary selves, so to speak. If she was more arrogant, she’d say that it meant all of them didn’t take it seriously enough… but probably it was the other way around – trying to be better and more serious when needed meant a lot. Unfortunately, Vista herself was out of practice with that.

Honestly, it was also arguably telling something about her, if the current image brought her comfort: her and Lily sitting in the chairs in their armor and twirling bolts in their fingers because Lily used them as an example for some topic they already forgot; Sabah and Taylor near the opposite wall, talking business, the former doing something with the mannequins and also making a weird stuffed penguin crawl on Skitter’s body, since, apparently, she was training fine control…

And, as always, it took only a second for that pleasant atmosphere to shatter – Vista tensed up instantly when she saw Taylor’s face smoothing out into a perfect mask in that creepy way only she could do. Vista knew – learned – how not to let her emotions ruin a fight, but she was sure she still felt them normally, and it could actually be seen and heard. But Taylor… Maybe there’d be not a lot of difference if she would show her face in fights just like that.

“Heroes,” Skitter called out, moving closer to the exit. “Get ready.”

Vista rolled her eyes, noticing how Lily grabbed Sabah’s mask and gave it to her, not forgetting to let her fingers linger for a moment – and not that Sabah didn’t do the same.

Okay, at the very least, Aisha already would be hiding and waiting for a moment to strike.

“Ready on what level, Skitter?” Foil picked up her crossbow. “I mean, ‘heroes’...”

“Hmm… Not for a fight. I guess,” Skitter muttered at the same moment as the door moved, but didn’t budge.

Skitter exhaled slowly and opened the door latch, immediately stepping away after that.

Missy couldn’t help but gasp in amazement and mutter something she herself didn’t realize, seeing how one of the greatest heroes in the world, the leader of the Guild, the person who was called the fourth member of the Triumvirate, the Fearless, the Hope Bringer, the Purple Star and lots of other epic and ridiculous nicknames from different parts of the world which Narwhal never liked and never accepted for just doing her job, as she often reminded, entered the shop. Though Vista also noticed how Narwhal tilted her head, so that she wouldn’t stab the ceiling with her horn and wouldn’t need to take her eyes off them, and how the forcefield on her hand straightened out, as if she was considering cutting through the latch with it, but decided against that.

Oh. My. God.

Seeing behind her the strange green robot that looked almost like a human, if not for its four legs and very bulky, yet sleek body, which obviously could belong to only one person, didn’t surprise Vista any more, since she already could hear her heart beating.

“Good timing,” Narwhal, looking around, commented calmly, but quickly – her voice actually was as deep as it was on TV. “Greetings, Undersiders. We came to ask for Vista’s help.”

“For what purpose?” Skitter answered in the same tone, moving a few steps to the side – that way she stood more or less between Narwhal and Vista.

Me?! Is this really happening? Well, I don’t think any Masters would choose such an illusion.

I knew that already, but fucking hell, you got balls, Taylor.

Narwhal wanted to say something, but the hand of the suit on her shoulder interrupted her.

“Evil Tinker,” Dragon’s well-known clear and warm, despite the speakers, voice rang out, “big bomb, can’t defuse bomb, experience suggests Vista can help.”

I already want to trust her just because of her tone of voice. Wow. And even more wow that a person- a hero like her is still able to talk like that. She’s talking about serious stuff, obviously, but, well… sometimes it needs to be really like this. Simple.

“Oh.” Skitter looked down, clearly thinking. “Vista?” She asked after several seconds, glancing at her.

“O-of course,” Vista breathed out. “I’ll help.”

There won’t be another Bakuda situation – not if I have to say anything about it.

“Very well.” Narwhal nodded and walked out first.

…Okay. I guess it’s good, not being questioned about playing nice or something.

“Foil, do you mind?” Skitter asked quietly.

“Actually, there are a few things going on that I mind,” Foil muttered, putting her crossbow behind her back. “But yeah, sure.”

Vista looked back at her teammates briefly, and, finally shaking off her surprise, hurried to follow Narwhal – which was not an easy task. Judging by the sounds, Dragon’s suit was the last one to follow after Foil.

Even if Vista had been through years of living in Brockton Bay, a city with a very active cape scene, usually she saw something… not really out of ordinary: Bonesaw’s stuff was similar to chemical weapons, Merchants’ Tinker created basically tanks, Skitter used, well, actual insects that were living here. So when she saw the golden disk with an image of a slightly different sky six feet above ground, to which Narwhal created a staircase with her forcefield in the middle of the parking lot, she did unwittingly raise her eyebrows.

Unexpectedly, it felt like… nothing. Just an imperceptibly quick movement – and Vista was already looking at the outskirts of some other city. 

The air was noticeably dryer, and for a second Vista felt uneasy. But her attention immediately was caught by strange craters in the ground – too perfect, practically identical. And then by the grass, which in some places was flattened in weird shapes. She herself even felt like she became… heavier. And, obviously, everything was empty, but the reasons were obvious – though Vista still never liked seeing the results of mass evacuation.

“Follow me step by step,” Narwhal called out, walking to the fairly normal house in front of them. 

Oh, the hell? The house has… rings in the air around it. Made of garbage, food, gravel… Huh.

“So, what’s the situation?” Vista asked.

“This Tinker was working with some sort of gravity-based technologies,” Narwhal started explaining without a hitch. “Presumably, his stuff was unusual enough for him to hide for some time while successfully stealing what he needed, so when the local team found him, he managed to create a lot of things, including a flying vehicle. Tried to get away, but in the process of shooting down one of the heroes he crushed – so he won’t be of any help. Apparently, judging by his remarks, before flying away, he overloaded…”

A little more than I expected… Huh. In the PRT we didn’t always get… more information than strictly necessary. I guess the Guild has different standards – well, we do know their members act more, eh, independently, should I say?

“For the lack of a better word, the energy reactor,” Dragon suggested. “So that the heroes wouldn’t be able to get anything.”

“Yes.” Narwhal nodded to her as they all rounded the house and stepped on the lift, which was strangely clean and bright – probably Dragon’s doing – despite everything else around looking like a war zone, including the shaft which didn’t have… anything to reinforce it, except for, again, whatever Dragon put there. 

Vista easily shut out her fear, but still, being buried underground wasn’t in her plans.

“So it’s not a bomb,” Foil said.

“Technically. The end result will be the same,” Narwhal replied.

The basement where they ended up was pretty big and cluttered with a lot of things that mostly looked like props from a sci-fi movie: computers, something resembling an assembly line, several big metal cubes just floating in the air, lots and lots of cables, including flying ones… And while there was bright yellow light, Vista couldn’t find any light sources. It was unnerving. Just like the fact that she actually started feeling gravity pulling her down.

But the most attention-grabbing thing was, of course, the reactor – a big six-sided… something the color of the molten silver, each side about four feet long, which was staying in the air and slowly rotating. Every few seconds it looked like it was pulsing, and the pull of the gravity for a brief moment was becoming stronger. Even the blue haze of the forcefield between it and them didn’t help.

“Do you see the parts of the, let’s say, magnetic bottle?” Dragon asked.

Vista had no idea what it meant, but she did see four big and weird machines on the walls and the ceiling, pointed at the reactor.

“That’s the distance on which the gravity field extends from the reactor in a sphere-shaped pattern.” Dragon’s suit moved to the side and connected to one of the machines – the second one near it was practically smoking. “It actually seems-

“It’s the reason why you’re here, Vista,” Narwhal interrupted her. “We can’t get through it – nothing has survived even half the distance. So we want you to try and make the reactor smaller, since Dragon assumes it will affect the size of the field.”

Vista moved a little closer and held out her hand.

Huh. It… resists. Interesting… Not the first time tinkertech is being weird, but usually not like this… 

“I can do this,” Vista said out loud. “But… It may take some time. It’s harder than, eh, usual.”

“We have… about forty two minutes,” Narwhal remarked.

“Forty one minute thirty eight seconds,” Dragon corrected her, but her tone suggested it was not fully serious. “By my rough estimations, of course. I am too unfamiliar with this technology. If I had at least an hour more…” One of the monitors blinked, but then went dark again. “Or if I could actually work with it without risking making the reactor explode faster. My other drone has been working here since we arrived, but I only managed to delay it, judging by the energy signature – and I achieved it through external means.”

Vista stared at the edges of the reactor, concentrating. It felt like instead of the normal effect her power wore off the moment she turned her attention away from one place… So she tried to do them all at once, which slowed her down. And was giving her a severe headache.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what will happen if…” Foil said with a hint of uncertainty.

“If we fail?” Narwhal replied evenly. “Probably the whole town will cease to exist.”

“Ah.”

“Or worse,” Dragon added. “That is just the most likely scenario. It may create something akin to a black hole. Or, additionally, change the Earth’s gravity field in this place permanently. Considering that this gravity field actually is much more than just gravity, there are quite a lot of variables.”

“Have you tried a lot of things?” Vista asked partly because she was interested, partly because it could maybe help, even if she doubted that.

“Tinkertech weapons, extremely high temperatures, telekinesis… Didn’t risk trying any portals.” Narwhal shook her head. “By the way, Dragon, what’s with your EMP charges?”

“Everything’s on schedule.”

“Alright, it will be five minutes… If that fails, Glyph will be back and we can try his idea… Eidolon?”

“His subordinate says he will be free in fifteen minutes,” Dragon answered readily.

“Acceptable.”

“You two know about Vista’s power, probably from her files,” Foil suddenly spoke up, making Narwhal glance at her and frown. “So you probably know about mine as well. Maybe we can try it out too?”

“You are here only because I hadn’t deemed it unnecessary, Foil,” Narwhal said without any notable emotion. “Because we don’t have time to deal with anybody’s protectiveness toward Vista. Your power might be useful when – if – the moment comes.”

When she’ll say so, she means. Well… Right now they do know better anyway.

“If I understand correctly how your power works, Foil,” Dragon said more warmly, “then I should say we don’t have any weapons with ammunition of the suitable size. And we do not want the reactor to lose just a part of it because it… uses all of it in the process – it seemingly doesn’t have any really separate enough details. Right now, at least. Maybe your bolt will destabilize the process and stop it, maybe it will cause it to overload with whatev- Fascinating!” Dragon interrupted herself. “You did start making it smaller!”

“I try to do it slowly,” Vista breathed out. “Easier.”

Narwhal measured her and everything in front of them with a look, and then the purple wall of her forcefield closed them all off the reactor in addition to the other one – and also covered the ceiling. It immediately started sparkling.

“The gravity pull isn’t changing, yet the gravity field is getting smaller…” Dragon murmured. “It is probable the former is a side effect of the process itself…”

“Does it matter?” Vista glanced at her suit, mentally sighing because she felt the sweat beading up on her forehead.

“No, no, not for your work, Vista,” Dragon reassured her. “Forgive me, but your way of breaking the laws of physics to break a machine that breaks the laws of physics is just extremely interesting!”

…That has to be a compliment. I hope so.

“The evacuation is fifty percent complete,” Dragon continued in a more serious tone after a pause. “If my calculations are correct, we will be able to get everyone out of the probable area of impact. Vista seems to be succeeding, of course, so there shouldn’t be any impact…”

“...But we always have to keep that in mind.” Narwhal nodded. “Thank you, Dragon. Team Gamma is doing alright, I take it?”

“Yes, nothing is out of the ordinary. There have been several incidents, but they were dealt with.”

“Very well. Now I can be sure that your idea for division of labor holds some merit…” Narwhal said thoughtfully. “Though as evacuations go, this one is very easy.”

“That was the point, wasn’t it? Low-risk environment… Well, relatively.” Dragon sighed – usually a very ordinary sound that a lot of people paid no mind to, but with her, even with the speakers, Vista could hear and feel the hint of worry, seemingly forever embedded in her kind, too kind voice.

Foil, who now stood near Vista, met her eyes for a second and briefly grimaced, then turned away to stare at the forcefield with her arms crossed over her chest. Vista was fairly sure they both understood the current topic, and she understood her friend’s distaste… But she honestly couldn’t begrudge the pair of heroes for treating this situation like this, among other things. Maybe she was a Ward, but she really wouldn’t be against some experience in assisting an evacuation before S-class shit could hit the fan. 

“I think this should be enough, Vista,” Dragon said after another half a minute. 

Vista looked at the reactor, which now was the size of a tennis ball – though it continued to work just like when they entered the basement.

“Some of my rockets are probably able to do the trick now, but it doesn’t hurt to be sure…” Dragon trailed off as her suit moved to the forcefield. 

“Which one?” Narwhal asked – she was already at the other side of the room, doing something inside the crates which Vista didn’t even notice before this moment.

“Mark Twenty, I think.”

“Damn…” Vista whispered, watching Narwhal carrying on her forcefield something resembling a rocket launcher – but about thrice the size of a normal one, in green and silver colors. Despite flying on the forcefield surface like it was as light as a handgun, it certainly weighed a few hundred kilograms.

Though Narwhal looks like a person who legitimately could carry it in her bare hands.

“At least you call these properly,” Narwhal muttered quietly, helping Dragon’s suit to set the weapon up in its four arms. “I consider forbidding Masamune from naming anything.”

“People love flashy names,” judging by her tone, Dragon smiled.

“Foil.” Narwhal straightened up. “Can you make the shell…”

“Can make it punch through anything,” Foil answered quickly.

Narwhal extended both her hands to her, so that Foil could touch it. Vista had a thought that a metal shell the size of Narwhal’s forearm and made by the best Tinker in the world could punch through almost anything as it is, but, of course, stayed silent.

“And now,” Narwhal handed the shell to Dragon, “we leave.”

The way up seemed much longer, for some reason, and Vista only exhaled properly when she saw the sun again. She remembered how her hands shook after she and Clock dealt with Bakuda’s bomb – but now she felt much more… calm. Maybe because she was just more used to such things, after all, she did worry about this unknown – doesn’t matter, never, city is city, innocents are innocents – city and the possibility of it turning into dust. She knew she might earn yet another theme for her nightmares from this. This certainly was what she signed up for – no matter the team, even if she couldn’t help but worry a tiniest bit more about Brockton Bay, which had the same empty abandoned streets more than enough times.

Vista couldn’t imagine how much of a toll it took on the Guild’s heroes, seeing such things in dozens, maybe hundreds of different places in a year. So much pain, so much destruction, so much… hopelessness, maybe – trying to fix so much. Vista believed she should try making the world better, but… She also knew it was practically an impossible task. Though she still was ready to try – like she did today. And she was grateful to Narwhal for giving her a chance to do something good in a place where she’d never come otherwise.

The ground suddenly shook, and Vista noticed how Narwhal’s eyes flickered to the side almost imperceptibly. She knew quite well how people usually looked when they were listening to their radios – that a little unfocused gaze, directed somewhat inward. And Vista, also knowing she was the same, now really wanted to learn how not to lose focus like Narwhal did.

If Vista had to be honest with herself, she wanted to learn lots of things from Narwhal. Maybe she had outgrown her fascination with one of the greatest heroes, but her experience only made her understand better why Narwhal was regarded as such.

Among other things, she did not hesitate to ask her to help… A villain…

“It seems we are done here,” Narwhal declared. “Vista, Foil, the Guild is grateful for your help.”

“O-of course. Happy to help,” Vista said sincerely. 

Foil, standing with Vista shoulder to shoulder, only nodded silently.

“I will not keep you any longer. Return to the place where we came here, Blink should already be there, since we are done – she will return you to Brockton Bay the same way.” Narwhal waved her hand, as if dismissing them, yet didn’t hurry to go to her other duties.

Hell, I don’t even know if I did good… Maybe she just said that to get rid of us. Though Narwhal doesn’t seem like that kind of a person…

Vista met Narwhal’s eyes, who for some reason was looking at her, almost like knowing what she was thinking about.

Still, it is Narwhal. The person whom even Armsmaster, one of the Protectorate leaders, can’t just meet in his day-to-day life – and can’t exactly make her come somewhere.

“Foil, you can go ahead, I’ll follow,” Vista murmured, being sure that Lily will trust her enough. Besides, Lily still owed her – it didn’t matter it was Lily who mostly thought that, and that Vista would never try to use that in any way.

Vista winced apologetically, seeing how Lily pursed her lips and looked at both of them, trying to glare, but she still sighed and started walking. Narwhal didn’t show any reaction.

“Narwhal… ma-am,” Vista said after several seconds. “Permission to ask a question that is less related to the situation?”

A stupid one, maybe. But the one that… can tell me something important.

“While we’re out here, just Narwhal. Permission granted, Vista.”

“Why isn’t Clockblocker here? I mean… if you read the reports about that situation. We dealt with that together, and this one is not that different.”

Still different. Yes. But that’s what I think…

“Do you want an obvious answer or an honest one?” Narwhal said evenly.

“Honest one. If you don’t mind.” Vista didn’t turn her eyes away.

“Your situation actually was different: ENE had enough time to start pushing for a kill order, to deal with bureaucracy, to plan. And it was inside your – your Protectorate’s – city.” Narwhal paused. “Also, I do not have the right to order Wards around, except for my own. I do not have the right to bring any Wards to obviously dangerous situations, which are already designated as such, or to other places. I can’t ask Wards to volunteer just like that. And even if it was considered justified by your superiors, we didn’t have another two hours to spare for dealing with all the papers and talks about that. And, obviously, I couldn’t just go and ask any of you without risking your identities – or, again, losing hours to talk with your superiors. I try not to risk any lives, even if it’s the lives of those who signed up to this, and Wards are rarely that,” right now she sounded more tired, resigned. “And, of course, this anomaly was estimated to have a much bigger area of effect by itself – you saw it yourself – so if you’d failed, we might’ve failed to cover it. Also Dragon believed even invulnerable barriers wouldn’t contain all the side effects, since it’s not a bomb in the usual sense of the word,” she added an obvious, of course, reason.

Ah. Right. Or if it wouldn’t explode, but stay in this anomaly-esk form… Clock is good, but even he can’t freeze stuff for a whole day or more without making a mistake. Even half of a second… But that’s not…

“And if I would still be a Ward, but you’d decide me being here is necessary?” Vista asked quietly – asked before she could stop herself, really wanting to hear an answer.

“It would depend on your whereabouts at the moment. Then, I suppose, if you would agree to help, after everything I would consider asking you,” Narwhal forced out, “to keep quiet about it or, more probably, to settle for a monetary compensation instead of a full-blown court hearing, though it would still happen.”

“But I… would never ask for money because of that!” Vista exclaimed. “Or… report you!..”

“Youth Guard would. Or the PRT. After all, getting a Ward out of school unnoticed would be next to impossible. Would be the trial of the year, I reckon. After all, there are lots of people who would do many things to get some dirt on me, at the very least, since the Guild has a good reputation.”

“So if I… hadn’t left…” Vista muttered under her breath.

“Then you would be significantly lower in our list of possible solutions,” Narwhal confirmed. “But you had. And since I have the right to recruit villains if there is an emergency, my troubles will be far smaller than that.”

“But, it’s just… Yeah, I’m a villain now.” Vista chuckled humorlessly. “And you are… Narwhal. I don’t even believe you have enemies like that, but doesn’t matter, you asked me to help! I a- was on your list, but I’m not even a Ward anymore… You’d still risk it, you are risking it because, well, I am…” Vista trailed off, sighing. “I wanted to ask right away, why would you even trust me to help in such an important mission after what I did, but I didn’t think of all that…”

What a fucking mess, I would make Narwhal’s life harder either way… Well, if they hadn’t found the solution before asking me. But what a mess…

Vista winced a little as Narwhal stepped closer to her, but otherwise didn’t move. And then flinched, staring at her with eyes opened wide, when Narwhal in one quick, but graceful movement got down on one knee. Vista just stared at her, not daring to say anything.

Narwhal’s hand on her shoulder was really heavy. And lifelessly cold – probably because of the forcefield. But Vista couldn’t give less of a fuck, looking into Narwhal’s eyes, serious and solemn, feeling her presence, inspiring respect and confidence – belief that she could protect everybody. 

Vista briefly wondered just how much it took from Narwhal to look like that.

“Because there is only the next mission – and nothing else, Vista. For it is our duty.” Narwhal said slowly, emphasizing each word.

Oh my god did she actually saw my message

Holy shit

Vista raised her eyebrows and, as she believed, even opened her mouth a little. It was quite some time since the last time she felt so dumbfounded.

“Since you got that right,” Narwhal continued, “I can guess you chose the same thing I did in the past. I carry on because I have to, because it’s my duty, because it’s the best I can do. And if you think you have to carry on like this, then we could use your help.” She patted Vista’s shoulder a few times and stood up. “There is hardly anything that has more value than a city,” she said more quietly.

Several cities or a country as a whole, maybe. …Taylor could’ve said that. Though Narwhal probably knows that better than anyone.

Certainly not one hero’s life or reputation, right? It’s not like I would’ve run away if that would have ended up to be the case. Even if it’s not Brockton Bay, I guess…

“I… didn’t really think that now I will be able to act without carrying the label of a villain,” Vista admitted. “I made a choice, yes, and…” she trailed off. “Never would think that a person like you wouldn’t care.”

“Firstly,” Narwhal said firmly, “I am important, obviously – but not special. Cut ‘like you’s’ out.” Vista reflexively straightened up, snapping to attention. “Secondly: I care, and care a lot. You are wrong, Vista, and your decision was foolish and short-sighted. But,” Narwhal made a pause, “trust me on this – I do understand. Of course, you shall be considered a villain, and by the laws and rules I have to arrest you. Those who do not follow the rules are wrong. But those who think that following the rules is the point, are wrong even more.” 

She shook her head and suddenly rubbed her eyes, making Vista wonder just how much Narwhal’s sleep schedule was similar to her own – after all, even if all this started not too long ago, the Guild’s heroes had to be already awake and ready to work before that. And Vista was sure it was not even ten in the morning…

“I want to do what’s right,” Vista said quietly. “And I no longer could believe the PRT was the way for that. Mission comes first, right?” she asked with a sigh and shifted position, glancing at Narwhal and her horn, shining in the sunlight.

“Be very careful in choosing your missions, then. And be wary of the line, which you already crossed – for a lot of people,” there was steel in Narwhal’s voice. “You have no chance for a mistake, since you already made one.” She looked away, into the distance, probably already seeing the first returning ships or other heroes. “I do not tolerate mistakes. But I also know they are inevitable, and that some of them only appear as such. You attracted some unwanted attention with your message, Vista, and you could become something more.” Narwhal sighed sadly. “But you did answer the call. So I hope for your sake as well that you’ll continue to prove you don’t need the rank of a Ward to do that.”

‘Do not make me regret this’, huh.

I won’t. 

“Also, keep everything that happened here between us. I cannot make you or Foil not talk – but the Guild has its usual ways of processing and releasing the information about its actions.”

Well, probably she means her readiness to use the means necessary. Though it’s not like their publicly available reports contain ninety-nine percent blatant Guild propaganda – and even that would be more than whatever the PRT releases. 

“You don’t need to ‘make’ me, Narwhal,” Vista muttered. “I understand.”

“Very well.” Narwhal nodded. “Now go.”

“I… could help with the clean-up, if…”

“Not a lot of things to clean up, and you cannot do anything to help in organizing the process of getting this city back on track. You are dismissed, Vista.” 

Fair enough. And I guess I did take far more of her time than I deserve.

Vista simply nodded and hurried to Foil, who was waiting all this time and watching them both from around the corner of a building. Vista didn’t know why her friend was worrying, but she didn’t really have the strength to even roll her eyes at that – a little bit of realisation that a whole city was at stake and her nervousness finally started sinking in.

Maybe it really was easier not to think and just do my job, hoping that everything is going to work out, since we’re heroes. 

Blink, the woman in the intricate armor painted in black and gold, actually was waiting for them, impatiently tapping her foot, so Vista tried to apologize. But the cape just silently waved her off, and so with the help of another golden disk Vista and Foil returned to the same parking lot near the Dollhouse. 

“Damn.” Vista let out a long and heavy sigh. “Really want to say ‘what a day’, but it’s still morning.”

“Well, I sure fucking hope this won’t become an ordinary thing,” Lily muttered. 

“It is an ordinary thing though.” Vista shrugged. “How many capes are out there, one in a few dozen thousands? Even if only five percent of them can do something as dangerous instead of making drugs out of their sweat, it’s still… don’t know, several cities being in danger every day?”

“Okay, I don’t want any of my friends to be used to participating in such eve- and I don’t want to hear that we already are.” Lily pointed at Vista. “Even if so, it shouldn’t be… Not all of them are your fight, for fuck’s sake,” she mumbled.

“Not even when someone like Narwhal needs my help?” Vista said with confidence.

“Yes!” Lily threw up her hands. “With all due respect, I really wanna say ‘fuck her’, because she just came here, expecting you to dance to her tune… Ugh.”

“Don’t tell me I should mention all those thousands of people whose lives and homes were at stake.” Vista crossed her arms over chest.

“You shouldn’t.” Lily laughed sadly. “Really, really shouldn’t. But I no longer can pretend I don’t care about the lives of my friends just as much. Doesn’t matter what we signed up for.”

“Well… We did.” Vista sighed. “I did. That’s how it is.”

“Yes, and it frustrates me to no end! But not even our great Thinker can figure out how to fix the world, and even Dragon didn’t yet create a big green button that’ll turn our world into utopia. What are they waiting for?” Vista couldn’t help but smile after hearing that. “Okay, sorry, I’m done being mad at this. I can do that later, right now I’m glad you did the thing and we saved everything we could.” Foil adjusted her helmet and stretched her arms. “But, Vista, please, promise me that you’ll call me if something like this comes up again.”

“Parian will get mad if you’ll die because of me, you know.” Vista chuckled.

“She would understand,” Lily answered seriously. “And she will get mad for sure, if I won’t be there with you.” She smiled briefly.

“Guess I have no choice then.”

“You know you’re stuck with me, V.”

“Well, there are worse fates.” Vista waved her hand. “Let’s go, you still have to help your girlfriend. And I have to watch so that I can offer valuable advice.”

“You’re worse than Skitter in these matters, you know that, right?”

“Not the point. Besides, maybe my cloak can become a cool merch idea!” Vista intended it to be a joke, but still couldn’t hide a hint of disgust.

“I re-e-eally doubt it.” Lily grinned.

“Good evening, Alice!” Dragon’s face suddenly appeared on the home screen of Narwhal’s computer, though carefully enough not to cover anything important.

“We talked two hours ago, Dragon,” Narwhal grunted, but did raise her gaze from her paperwork. “Also, it is still working hours.”

“Your working hours never end,” Dragon murmured, fully aware that Alice had an incredible hearing. “You could count on one hand the number of people who know your real name.” She sighed. “You should hear it at least sometimes, I think.”

“Pot, meet kettle. Dragon.”

“It is more complicated… We talked about that.”

“We did. Yet I still want to respond in kind, my friend,” Narwhal said more warmly. “So, did anything else happen?”

“Several new observations that could prove interesting to you, reports from Newfoundland… And I did want to ask you a question.”

“Oh? Did something escape your omnipresent cameras?” Narwhal raised an eyebrow.

“Hmm, not like that. You see, I also received an… unofficial enquiry, so to speak… Not a complaint or anything similar… From the Protectorate East-North-East.” Dragon looked a little bit apologetic.

“About what?” 

Dragon quietly sighed.

“If we are talking unofficially, you can tell Armsmaster that I do not care about problems in his – or any – Protectorate until they have at least a B-class threat running around,” Narwhal said firmly. “He in particular can cry me a river over having a gang of vigilanties almost as efficient as his own team. And since they managed to lose two promising Wards to that gang, I am not going to correct their mistakes instead of salvaging whatever’s left.”

“Despite what you… and me think, his complaint about us doing out in the open is quite valid, I believe.”

“Blink opened her disk in the place from the first good enough photo you found, nothing more, nothing less. We rarely have better options. What’s that about what you think?” Narwhal tilted her head, meeting Dragon’s eyes. “About Vista? Or the whole thing?”

“As you know, I deployed several of my suits against the Undersiders some time ago. It didn’t bring any significant results, but, I guess, I could thank Skitter for giving me ideas beyond the usual ‘need more durability’,” Dragon mused. “And considering the data I have, it is plausible that she would actually sincerely say ‘you are welcome’.”

“I see. Interesting.”

“That’s one of the things I wanted to ask about, actually.” Dragon perked up. “It wasn’t the first and won’t be the last time when we used villains’ help, and I did say this was an option… But you were- are right now, how should I put it… quite approachable? More so than usual.”

“A counter-question: what is your impression of Vista? It was the first one, right?”

“I must note it does not change the facts… But I also must admit it was overwhelmingly positive,” Dragon sounded thoughtful. “She is calm, capable – as evidenced by the mission, dedicated, respectful to us… Didn’t try to ask for a reward like some do.” Dragon smiled. “She had a perfect record before leaving as well.”

“My impression was not that positive, but positive enough for me to consider keeping good relations with her.” Narwhal waved her hand. “That doesn’t happen often, but the Vista situation was not a mundane one. At the very least, she would be the second non-hero – officially – to imply she’s not against us calling for her help. And since keeping good relations seemingly requires me simply talking about how things are, it’s a relatively good opportunity.” Narwhal contemplatively was moving the stacks of papers on her desk, simultaneously figuring out which should be the next one to deal with.

“At least with somebody your habit will be useful.” Dragon smiled warmly, making sure it didn’t sound insulting. “Nevertheless, it’s nice to see it bringing positive results, so to speak.”

“I do wish I didn’t have to play politics and talk around for the smallest things related to our job, organization, financing, level of autonomy or genders,” Narwhal grunted. “It is not my fault that useless and harmful people cannot handle being told they are useless and harmful.”

“To be fair, you can afford being direct and honest more than most, Alice… And you usually do not hesitate to do that.”

Narwhal answered with a brief smile and stood up, walking to her personal coffee machine – after all, she had a long evening ahead. As usual.

“Going back to the topic… I must note that Vista’s willingness to work with us probably depends on the Undersiders’ existence. If her new team were to disappear… Even if not by the Protectorate’s hand, she might very well go solo in that case.”

“I couldn’t just recruit her right there, if that’s what you mean.”

“So you do think there’s a chance for that, hmm?”

“I will not lose a Shaker ten to some petty disagreements.”

“Her file suggests she is a Shaker nine,” Dragon deliberately corrected her friend, knowing that Narwhal never made mistakes in such things.

“Then her file was made by idiots.” Narwhal shook her head. “You compiled the info for me, including unofficial sources. And one of the things I saw is that Vista doesn’t seem to have a limit besides the Manton one. Even if it exists, I struggle to imagine all of the implications of her power as it is. And I am sure that if Vista ever goes off the deep end, she might become the most horrible terrorist Earth has ever seen,” she declared calmly.

“We can say that about a lot of capes – heroes as well,” Dragon said.

“Hence me trying to prevent Vista from becoming a threat. And since otherwise she is a very valuable ally, I do not decide to do it the easy way. For now.” Narwhal sighed. “And in any case, we cannot afford to let a Shaker ten just sit and do nothing because of her being too eager to help.”

“I see your point.” Dragon’s avatar nodded. “And you are right about her… eagerness, I think. Despite everything, I pity Vista,” she said softly. “A whole lot of mistakes were made, and she took a way out that she saw. She might be- is a criminal, but… I admit I usually give people the benefit of the doubt, but with her I want to give it.”

“Do not ever mention to her that you pity her,” Narwhal commented absentmindedly, since for her it was obvious. “Actually, I do remember you said you were a little bit touched by her message.” She chuckled.

“The Guild was created, among other things, to prevent stories like hers from happening.” Dragon looked away, hiding her mournful gaze. “And I didn’t even have to use any programs to determine that her words were sincere.”

“A rare thing indeed.” Narwhal sipped her coffee. “And about your concern, please tell me if you… come across such plans related to the Undersiders. If I want, at least, Vista to ever get here, it will be easier without her remembering how her previous team was burnt to crisps by Eidolon.”

“Even like that?”

“If you are about Eidolon, yes, they can be worth calling upon the Triumvirate. After all, Skitter has a card up her sleeve that apparently has some chances against even Alexandria, so I would take them seriously. And if you are about my request…” Narwhal broke off, returning to see Dragon’s face. “We are stretched thin. As always. If some background talks can save a cape team that possibly can be helpful, so be it. If the situation won’t change, of course. After all, it was you who theorised we need at least six more Guilds to actually approach making things better at an acceptable rate.”

“...Are you suggesting that the Vista scenario can be repeated?”

“She wears the label of a villain, mostly.” Narwhal drawled. “Unlike her new team. So no.”

“It’s worth mentioning that today everything went well with them as well…”

“I don’t think it matters a lot, Dragon.” Narwhal pursed her lips. “We’ll think about it when there’s a reason. The Undersiders, first of all, are not currently our problem, and except Vista… and possibly Foil do not warrant my attention.”

Narwhal made herself comfortable and took in her hands the document about the availability of resources for their humanitarian efforts in South America, but Dragon interrupted her before she could start reading:

“There was something different with you today, I still think.” Dragon’s avatar sat down on her holographic armchair, looking pensively. “I understand all your points, yet can’t help but think…”

“What?”

“Maybe my friend wants to talk to me about something, but hesitates?” Dragon smiled. “You know I won’t ever judge.”

“Not really like that.” Narwhal sighed. “Well… I guess you may say I was feeling… somewhat nostalgic.”

“Never associated that word with you,” Dragon confessed. “You are… not a futurist, maybe, but certainly not a person who spends time on things like that.”

“As you know, I wasn’t that much older than Vista when I chose my path. If you got an empty home, it is easier to continue carrying out the mission instead of returning, after all,” Narwhal long ago stopped being anything but calm, remembering this. “If I was just a bit younger, if I spent several years in the old Guild and then faced its fall? I personally knew at least four heroes from Canada who decided not to come back and stay independent or, yes, vigilanties.”

“I remember how you were persuading Cinereal from becoming a de-facto vigilante.” Dragon chuckled quietly. “You told me after that she was just very frustrated with one of her missions and wouldn’t go through with that, but you did take that very seriously. Or our discussion about Mouse Protector…”

Narwhal once again wondered just how good her friend was at memorizing seemingly the smallest things. But that was one of Dragon’s most endearing qualities.

“...Any country – or society – needs to be protected by people who follow both the letter and the spirit of the law. It’s not up to debate. But it can also be not a good sign if there are no people like, for example, Vista, who follow just the spirit of the laws… Most of them, you get it. Those people can be brought to respect laws properly – or enough to work. But it’s far harder to make anyone care about why they should protect people and laws besides getting popular. And the systems that are currently in place don’t encourage not following the rules since they are their Holy Grail – by obvious reasons, yes, but I still should note that.”

“Is up to debate your implication that people who follow only the spirit of the law are better than those who follow only the letter?” 

“The Guild itself can be considered an example,” Narwhal said thoughtfully. “All the different agendas our members have, our involvement in politics even where other countries do not let parahumans participate, our actions against warlords which some see as destruction of the whole communities…” She met Dragon’s eyes. “Or us not arresting a traitor to the Protectorate.”

“I didn’t say that to actually argue.” Dragon’s eyes crinkled as she let out a laugh. “Just seemed like an interesting thought, especially from you, Alice. I am all for making the world a better place, and I only wish I could do more… Even if that would require us to make difficult choices. And while there is a debate to be had – and I expect we both will have it soon – I am of the opinion that your choice today was not actually a difficult one.” 

Her smile was the usual one: genuine and soft, reminding Narwhal how lucky she actually was to find a friend like her – Dragon may have been the weapon in the Guild’s hand and one of its brains, but also one of those who paved the way to the future. Hopefully, a future where there would be no need to bring thirteen year old girls on missions.

Chapter Text

It felt like Vista was here just yesterday, though it obviously wasn’t true. But unlike the headquarters, it didn’t make her feel both angry and detached because of all the memories and other stuff. Baggage. Whatever.

Besides, the house of the Dallons did look pretty cute and unthreatening. Cozy, even. Maybe Vista’s own place was comfortable, but this one was… something from a movie – one of the ideals of a typical American family. Almost like her parents’ house was… For her parents, at least. Probably. She could say she hoped so, but she truly didn’t care.

Vista made an effort to knock loud enough. 

Always wondered how other people in movies or real life knocked with their knuckles and it was loud. I sometimes fail to do that even when I’m wearing my gauntlets, god dammit.

She didn’t have to wait long: in just a few seconds she heard barely audible steps – obviously wasn’t Brandish – and since she could hear them at all, it probably wasn’t Glory Girl. Which was… unfortunate.

The door opened, letting Vista see Amy, who looked absolutely as normal as usual, except for a cast on her right arm, and had the same usual scowl on her face. Unexpectedly, after a moment of surprise, she looked Vista over and frowned.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Amy hissed.

“Well,” Vista was taken aback for a second, “me and Victoria agreed to meet up, but, I guess, she isn’t here yet, so…”

“That’s pure unfiltered fucking bullshit, Missy, I know you enough to be sure you’re not that stupid.” She shook her head. “You may not care anymore, and the PRT can afford not to care, but the New Wave won’t get any brownie points if people see you lurking around our house!” Amy glanced around.

Well… Thankfully, the winter is coming, so it’s already somewhat dark outside. And without my costume I also hardly attract attention…

“I… am sorry. It was suggested to me and I thought it was kinda funny…” Vista pursed her lips and looked down. “I mean, that’s how I usually came here, and Victoria didn’t say anything… If you really think it will be harmful for you guys, I will never do this again,” she said more firmly.

I… may not care anymore. Yes. But that’s about me. I really didn’t think that… I didn’t want to bring the troubles to the New Wave’s doorstep officially, yet didn’t think I could be a problem here, like this…

“I’m not surprised Vicky didn’t say anything. Was too busy flying around being happy or something.” Amy let out a quiet chuckle. “And… Nah. I mean, it can be harmful in some ways, but I don’t give a shit about PR. Panacea enjoys an unlimited amount of good reputation, after all,” she muttered with a hint of disgust. “But that’s what any other member of our team could say if they saw you out here, at the very least, and I wouldn’t wanna make anything worse.”

“Got it.” Vista nodded.

“But while all that is true, fuck that.” Amy shrugged. “You saved my life, after all. As far as I’m concerned, you’re always welcome… in the place where I live.” She rolled her eyes. “Even though you also made me weirded out by blood, which is a fucking achievement.”

“I try not to be a mundane person,” Vista quipped.

“You don’t say.” Amy sighed, leaning against the doorframe. “Aren’t tired of seeing yourself in the news?”

“I don’t watch them,” Vista shrugged. “That’s the point of being a villain – don’t need to care about it that much.”

“You’re still the most popular topic on the PHO.” Amy snorted. “Well, on the local boards, you know. There’s some interesting stuff… And a few funny hashtags.”

Probably more serious than funny, but Amy… has some skewed opinions, yeah. Can’t blame her, though.

“Any official statements from the New Wave?” Vista tried to smile.

“Well, Vicky did say people who were talking shit about you to fuck off, so there’s that. Nothing else.”

“I never doubted her. Though I don’t deserve her.”

“Yep. None of us do.”

Amy suddenly raised her hand and touched Vista’s cheek. And if it was… almost any other person, she would’ve flinched away – but Amy Dallon long ago was designated by her subconscious as the person who was allowed to touch her whenever. Missy didn’t even really know how many of her bones Panacea had glued back together.

“Hmm. To be honest, I expected worse,” Amy muttered after several seconds, lowering her hand.

“Meaning?” Vista tilted her head.

“I can’t expect villains to keep an eye on their health, can I? I patched up a few small things – the consequences of your missions, I guess – but otherwise you’re fine. You’re even eating better,” she ended thoughtfully.

“I think there are more people who care about me eating properly now.” Vista chuckled. “Me excluded, of course.”

One is greater than zero, after all. Considering that my parents more often than not tried to get me candy or something like that, because… who the hell knows, children love junk food, I guess, and I’m supposed to become happier from that.

“Of course,” Amy agreed easily.

Vista met her friend’s, as always, tired, but serious eyes – and the uncertainty behind them.

“If you’re expecting a story about how I’m overcoming all the new troubles just because I can’t back down from my decision, you won’t hear any.”

“Your stubborn ass saying that can’t fully reassure me. No offense.” Amy crossed her arms over chest, or, well, tried to. “But you’re a big girl, so it’s your business.”

Vista briefly smiled and nodded.

“Amy, what is taking you so long?” Unexpectedly a male’s voice called out somewhere behind her.

Amy froze for a moment, then glanced at Vista, who shifted position, and after a moment smiled wryly.

“Nothing, dad! Everything’s totally fine!”

Seventy percent sure she said that just to make fun of the situation. Though Flashbang isn’t the person who would attack me on sight… As much as I know.

And Amy can be an asshole. That too.

“So yeah,” Amy continued talking as she stepped out and closed the door behind her, “Vicky probably got busier on her courses than she expected. But I assure you, she won’t be long – well, she’ll surely fly straight here at full speed because of you. I’m actually a little jealous.”

“You think Victoria could handle not knowing where you are even for one day, hmm?” 

“...Fair enough. Though she still worries about you – and tells me about it. Unfortunately, I’m the only one who has to bear with it.”

Still the same Amy Dallon. It’s been a little less than two weeks since you told me directly that you’d want me to come back alive next time… and stop torturing myself. But, of course, without the recent danger of death Amy won’t be all nice and warm. Though, ‘the only one’...

Vista tilted her head questioningly, looking at Amy.

“Carol and aunt Sarah aren’t here for the moment, but the Pelhams wouldn’t welcome you just the same, Missy.” Amy shook her head. 

“I see.” Vista sighed quietly. “Can’t say much, but at least Laserdream was pretty nice to me those few times we talked.”

“She’s usually nice to everyone. Yet she’s quite angry with a certain Ward turned villain. Though maybe it’s more about our team needing to take a more proactive stance in the wake of all this or something.”

“I mean no offense as well, but is this really the time? Not when we had conflicts for territory every week?” Vista huffed.

“Ask her if you wanna know.” Amy shrugged. “It’s not like I have a big sway here or can actually take that stance.”

“I mean, it’s just… Ugh.” Vista turned around and leaned against the wall to Amy’s side, letting her eyes wander somewhere into the sky.

“Vicky and I trust you,” Amy murmured after a pause. “We can afford to do that, since we know you. Most people don’t have that luxury.”

“It’s fine,” Vista answered quietly – and she was almost sincere. “No matter how much I might despise someone or they might despise me, I’ll still do my duty. That hasn’t changed and never will.”

“Yeah. I know.”

Among so many people – and capes – you truly do, Amy. It’s nice to hear that.

“That was to be expected, I guess,” Vista tried to sound nonchalantly. “I didn’t really think about that back when…” she trailed off, but Amy simply nodded. “But that doesn’t require a Thinker to predict. Yeah…”

“I could ask how do you-”

“Isn’t it obvious, Amy?”

“Eh. Have to check if you’re actually aware about how you feel.” Amy’s shoulder lightly touched her own. “That makes it easier to run from it. At the very least.” She chuckled without smiling.

Or lots of other reasons, which make it easier. New things to do. People to meet. Missions to complete – missions where I can really be involved. A place of my own where I can do some ‘running’ without risking running into them.

“Though I haven’t seen a lot of them, you might be the worst therapist I’ve ever seen,” Vista said with a nod.

“Well, that checks out. As for myself, I find food and cigarettes a better therapy,” Amy muttered. “A shame, by the way. I’d invite you in to try out all the stuff my parents cooked from the apples handpicked by yours truly… But you get why I didn’t.”

“Handpicked? Now I know it’s bullshit.” Vista laughed. “Panacea never has time to buy groceries like that.”

“True. But recently I started having a little more time. The doctors are being a pain in the ass.” Amy jolted her right shoulder. “For some reason. Besides, it only takes me half a second to check, for example, an apple.”

“It’s nice,” Vista said thoughtfully. “You know, having a way to use your power not only for work. I barely tried for years. And mine isn’t that useful, but still…”

“That means now you do?” Amy glanced at her.

“Wards are forbidden from using their powers in the headquarters. Well, supposed to be – barring emergencies. But unlike others, Vista always follows the rules,” Vista replied with a bitter edge in her voice. “And now, at the very least… You saw my cloak, for example.”

Amy nodded absentmindedly, even if she was looking at Vista’s face rather than the place where the cloak could be – her black jacket.

“...Before you, well, you two go. We also wondered: was there any other reason for you to leave?”

Even I don’t know how many of them were there, Amy. How many appeared recently – except Armsmaster’s decision, how many just… floated around, hiding in my mind, because I didn’t want to think about them. To notice them.

“Maybe. Didn’t tell you. Didn’t want to. Not your problem – shouldn’t be,” Vista replied in clipped phrases, looking down.

“There’s no love lost between me and the PRT, just saying.”

“Between you and them – probably. Well, not sure about them… We all respect you, Amy. But it’s not the New Wave’s problem. Even if now you wouldn’t help if I’d ask, I guess.”

“Fine. Whatever.” Amy waved her hand. “One time I try to be a normal friend…”

“You already are.” Vista tilted her head. “You talk and listen to me. You care. More than enough,” she made a pause. “Maybe later, Amy. I don’t know. Maybe when I myself will deal with it.” Vista let out a long sigh. “It’s just… A lot of things happened. Recently and in the past. Maybe without just one my decision would be different, maybe not… Or…”

“I won’t pry.” Amy briefly touched her shoulder. “Though, despite everything else, I’ll admit I respect, at least, that you went through with it, you crazy girl. Oh, but Vicky will pry, I’m pretty sure.” When Vista simply shrugged, Amy opened the door. “See you around, Vista. And try not to kill yourself. I suggest waiting for my sister on the roof, she won’t miss you there.” 

“Thanks,” Vista said in a suddenly hoarse voice as a way to say goodbye as the door closed with a loud noise.

***

Vista still was very jealous of Victoria’s ability to fly. She could’ve been even more jealous, if Victoria didn’t get that and if she wasn’t kind enough to let Vista fly with whenever they had the chance. Not often, of course – only Amy was allowed to use the flying privileges often – but each and every time was as cool as the first one.

And, maybe, in any other situation Vista would’ve been displeased with the need to ride on somebody’s back, since she was not a damn child, but here she trusted her own limbs more than her friend’s. Thankfully, Victoria understood or simply tolerated her stupid whims – which didn’t matter, Vista was grateful all the same.

The feeling of the cold and clear wind was pretty amazing. But higher in the air, near the clouds, it was even better. And the view was absolutely amazing, even if Vista tried not to glance at the bay and the Rig.

“So,” Vista looked back at the Dallon house, which was already hard to see, “does your family know where… with whom you are?”

“I am being late because of my university courses, obviously!” Victoria replied with a grin. 

“I don’t wanna create a problem for you with that!” Vista had to outyell a particularly loud gust of wind.

“Don’t worry, I dealt with all my, heh, homework!”

“And lied to your family, I presume?” Vista chuckled humorlessly. “I’d get that on my own, probably, but Amy was generous enough to tell me directly.”

“Wouldn’t be the first or second or third time that I’ve done that to hang out with friends!” Victoria pointed out. “Though I’ll admit that the whole family may react worse this time…” She huffed. “Shit, that means we shouldn’t be seen, right?”

“I guess so!” Vista agreed – even with Glory Girl it shouldn’t be very hard, though she attracted attention without her costume as well. “But you couldn’t possibly forget everything I taught you, right?”

“You mean, all our arguments about how stupid movie characters are behaving when they are on the enemy territory?”

“That too!”

***

“Yeah, by the way,” Victoria started talking as they flew farther to the outskirts of the city, “that event we’re getting ready for in Arcadia, for Christmas… Ah. Right. You were… unavailable when we started.” 

“First time hearing about this,” Vista confirmed. “Just after I left, you mean?”

“Two days from that, yep. Among other things, we’ll recreate a part of a very popular, hmm, rock-opera, I think it should be called… From Earth Aleph!” Victoria said proudly. “Honestly, I’m not sure if we could push through with it if not for the Wards – of course, they are ordinary students, but I do think their suggestions are being indulged a bit more often… Well, they don’t do things often, except Dean,” she muttered a little more quietly, “but this time is different. Everybody’s on board!”

“Even, I don’t know, Dennis?” Even if it couldn’t be seen, Vista raised her eyebrows. “Really? He never liked such things! A stand-up comedy – maybe, but an opera?”

“I was surprised too! So, eh-h-h… I get that you’re still busy as always…”

“Victoria…”

“And I know that you probably can’t even risk showing your face around the school…” She sighed. “I didn’t even discuss it with Amy, since I know she’ll call me an idiot. But still, it’d be nice if you could come watch, right?”

“It would be nice.” Vista shook her head. “But, I mean… You even just told me you get why not.”

“Well, there are ways around that…” Victoria said thoughtfully. “I’m sure I know Arcadia almost as well as the back of my hand.”

“I believe you, but that wasn’t the point.”

“I wouldn’t ask if it was only about me, Missy.” Victoria turned her head and briefly glanced at her.

“We’ll see,” Vista muttered, not deeming it necessary to promise anything more than that. “Wish you all luck with that, though. Sounds pretty cool. Never was a fan of operas, but if there’s rock…”

“Not as much as you think, but yeah, cool stuff,” Victoria replied, but this time more subdued. “I’m playing a Light sorceress, actually. Maybe I should say this is marvelous or something. Maintain my image, you know.”

“Not your style.” Vista chuckled. “Though you’d make an amazing Light sorceress, Victoria. Even in real life.”

***

“Well, that was fast,” Vista commented as Victoria appeared from below. Since they both could walk on the roofs – a rarity even with capes – they decided to spend their time like that. “I can’t believe it still works.”

“People are usually ready to trade their place in the line for an autograph.” Victoria laughed. “And if I was in my costume, I’d probably spend twice as less time!”

“Maybe I should also try that…” Vista with a grateful nod accepted a cheeseburger from her friend’s bag.

“It probably wouldn’t work even before,” Victoria drawled, standing near. “And now people will probably assume you’re there to rob them. Yeah…”

“To rob a fast-food place? Even the Merchants weren’t always that desperate.” Vista rolled her eyes.

“Anyway, I didn’t ask before I left, but I see you finally made peace with the Great Cheeseburger betrayal of August of ‘11?”

“I told you to stop calling it that.” Vista tried to glare at Victoria, but gave up half-way. “But yep, guess so. Though I had help,” she muttered, suddenly feeling like she was able to smile at that.

“Hmmm, is that so?” Victoria raised an eyebrow.

“Help from somebody who didn’t use that to try and prove to me that sushi is a superior food!”

“Which they are.” Victoria pointed at Vista with her own burger. “Though it need not be a competition… All of these tasty or greasy or calorific foods can work together. Sushi is just the tiniest bit better, though.”

***

“Hey, I was thinking… Maybe I can get Amy a gun? You know, for self-protection.”

“...What?”

“It won’t be theft, if you’re worrying,” Vista said with a straight face.

“No… I mean, you wouldn’t do that. But…” Victoria sounded thoughtful.

“You won’t always be around. We already… established that fact,” Vista didn’t like to remind her friend of that, but it truly was a fact. “And Panacea hardly can fight anybody who won’t be kind enough to let her touch them.”

“She did hit Skitter with a fire extinguisher once…”

“When it was what, Skitter’s first crime? Amy hardly will ever get so lucky again,” Vista retorted. “To be honest, I’m kinda baffled that your family never cared to do that. I get that it’s not, like, easy to pass exams or whatever, but Amy is too important to risk even if we only count her power.”

“There are some things by which I’m baffled as well,” Victoria grunted and pursed her lips. “Though I’m not surprised that you’re telling me this.” She let out a brief smile.

“I care about Amy and Panacea.” Vista nodded. “I mean, some people are not just evil and stupid, but greedy too. And they might as well decide that if they don’t get to use the greatest healer, nobody does. So she needs… hmpf, at least something.”

“I’ll talk to her,” Victoria agreed, “but bear in mind, she’ll probably refuse. Among other things, Ames really is a healer, you know. Besides, our family probably won’t agree, and we can’t just hide a gun under a pillow…”

“Are they stupid?”

“Missy.”

“Come on,” Vista huffed. “Amy is capable of not shooting herself – well, after some training. And she is different! Capes very rarely get to use guns, heroes are allowed to do that even less, but Amy is literally one of the most important capes, who also can’t protect herself!”

“I know, Missy! I fucking know! But even if Amy wanted… We can’t just flip off everybody!” Victoria exclaimed. “Like you did,” she muttered. “It could help her hypothetically, but absolutely get both of us a shit-ton of problems – first of all, with our mother.”

“...Well, I’ll be here if Amy decides something.” Vista nodded and looked away. “I can help with anything in this regard.”

“...I just hope I’ll stay the only one of us who’ll need to bash some skulls if needed.” Victoria said quietly, putting her hands in her pockets, and unwittingly quickened her pace.

That I can understand.

***

“Oh, right, look, our roof!” Victoria exclaimed suddenly. “Okay, not ours, but we’ve been here enough times to say that!” She started getting down, not noticing Vista’s lack of reply. “Though this is practically a place for all the flyers to hang out, with this view…” She let Vista go and stepped closer to the edge, squinting at something at the distance and fixing her hair. “Mountains, a park, quite close to the shore… Did I tell you how once me, Crystal and Carlos met up here spontaneously? I wonder if it’s like that in all the other cities: you know, some tall building somewhere close to the center, where cape- Ah, right, your school is near as well,” Victoria followed Vista’s intense gaze. “Didn’t visit this place much without me, hmm? You were saying something about the number of peopl…” This time Victoria consciously interrupted herself, biting her lip and glancing at Vista.

“There are a lot of people around and under us. Yes.” Vista said calmly and quietly. “But I did visit. Several times.”

In those few days between Vista leaving and appearing again in Amy’s ward, Victoria tried to get information about her friend wherever she could – tried to understand or, at least, get a clue. And even if she couldn’t check any police or PRT reports, the Wards knew some things – and Victoria could be very persuasive when needed. But pretty much everybody heard at least something about why the cafe near Vista’s school was still closed.

Victoria remembered seeing it, still full of yellow police tape, when she for some absolutely stupid reason thought that, maybe, her friend wouldn’t miss school. So her eyes easily found its building from here as well.

“You still think about tha- them. That much,” Victoria whispered.

“Well, what did you expect?” Vista asked without turning around in an almost resigned voice.

“Nothing. But hoped… God damn it.” Victoria threw up her arms. “You always think that if something happens, then it has to be your fault. Now that things have changed, I thought, maybe at least…”

“These things never change, it seems,” Vista said bitterly. “Wherever I look. At the docks, at some of the warehouses, at the city center… At my school!” she raised her voice. “The place where sixteen students died because I wasn’t good enough! I have to look at it,” she hissed, emphasizing every word. “...I must never forget.”

“Maybe I wasn’t there and we didn’t yet talk about that, but I am sure you did the best you could,” Victoria tried her best to sound confident. “You always do, and people saw it that day as well!”

“‘My best’ got them killed. Your best-” Vista bit her lip and looked down.

Victoria let out a long and tired sigh, visibly restraining herself.

“…You did not mean any of that, Missy.”

“Does it make that less true?”

“Alright!” Victoria walked up to Vista. “And what about, for example, those people who would’ve died in that fire, if you weren’t there that day? Are their lives worth less?!”

Now Vista glanced at her, but stayed silent – though Victoria saw that look of hers not for the first or second time.

“That’s it! Since I’m probably the only normal fucking person you talk to nowadays, I’ll say it out loud!” Victoria touched Vista’s shoulder. “You changed your whole life, you threw away your career and whatever else only because you wanted to do what you can do better! So don’t you dare say that you’re not doing enough!” Victoria took a breath. “You helped Narwhal save a city – well, it was seen and everything, but I still talked about it in school, like, several times,” hearing that, Vista felt a ghost of a smile, “and I know you’re absolutely her fan.”

“I mean…”

“I know enough, little V. You are. And so you know a lot about her, I take it. How many people do you think died on her watch, huh?! Thousands, maybe – a lot more than sixteen, but she saved a hundred people for every one she didn’t, and no sane person will ever begrudge her that! Or do you think you’re better than her?”

“No.” Vista weakly shook her head, upset by the comparison.

“And don’t even tell me about how you shouldn’t forget or something, just like I heard not once nor twice, you already changed your life for that, and no matter what I think, it means that you remember better than most as it is! I know that you remember them better than most, better than most people ever could handle, because I actually get to watch how you torture yourself every fucking month – and get left to wonder how nobody else sees that!”

“I’d like to think I’m not that easy to read,” Vista muttered, looking away. “You get a pass because you’re my friend, but…”

“Do you remember how our first ever actual talk ended?” Victoria leaned in almost to Vista’s face. “You, an eleven year old ch- teenager, tried to boast of your battle scar,” she whispered through clenched teeth. “I flew the fuck away after that because it was nuts!”

Thank you for coming back, then.

“Huh. I think back then I believed your excuse about your worried mother…” Vista commented calmly. “Besides, it’s not that…”

“It is that! I thought I was going crazy since it was obvious you weren’t all good ‘n fine!” Victoria rolled her eyes. “Well, for anybody who talked to you longer than a few seconds. And yes, you never talk about this stuff directly, but you don’t even look the part!”

“I liked you,” Vista said quietly. “I mean, I still do. So it’s really not fair. And some of my friends did suggest, well…”

“It wasn’t their job!” Victoria bit back with a surprising amount of poison. “Never should be! Especially considering how important you are and in what situation you were in! They had to keep their eyes on you every damn second!” She exhaled and shook her head.

Maybe. In any case, doubtful that Piggot would allow to coddle the Wards. Or to pay special attention to us. I mean, after some time I thought what we had was better than that, but… I’m not the best to choose, am I?

Victoria rarely gets mad on the PRT… And like this, when she usually doesn’t mind being, well, free. ’Important’... Is she talking only about me?

“Fucking hell…” Victoria pursed her lips and, after a moment of thought, just sat down on the edge of the roof right where she stood.

Vista felt a little bit sorry for her friend’s very expensive jeans, but didn’t say anything – after all, she herself never minded something like that. And so she, sighing, sat down beside Victoria, though a bit farther from the edge.

They clashed over this quite a few times. And Vista had somewhat similar arguments with several of her friends, even if with Victoria they were usually longer. But now Vista felt… strange. She was used to defending her point of view just as passionately as she felt about it, but… She actually felt more, well, content lately.

Two years ago she would never dare – or even think – to raise her voice on, for example, a superior officer, an actual Protectorate hero. And she wouldn’t do that right now. But about a month ago she did just that… Though Vista still felt justified, no matter how good things turned out. She didn’t remember when that changed – when she actually started challenging other viewpoints, no matter how quietly – but she somehow knew that now it felt like she needed that less. Less proving something at least to herself.

“You guys say that sometimes I should, to put it simply, let it go,” Vista started quietly, looking somewhere in the distance, at the lights and barely visible half-moon. “But I never believed I should or I could. I can’t afford to forget – no hero can afford to forget, I think. It may lead to… Well…”

“Everything’s good in moderation, and the amount of the weight of the world on your shoulders especially,” Victoria muttered. “But you, Missy, never settle for half-measures. Guess this time it just became obvious.”

Vista only shrugged her shoulders.

“…I told Amy that you didn’t, because, maybe, it may really be different for the likes of you, no matter what I think. But I want to… well, know. You really threw away your ordinary life for this, Missy. You don’t… regret?” Victoria looked up at her and reached out to Vista’s hand with her own.

“I threw away my ordinary life the day when I got so scared by my parents shouting that I triggered,” Vista grunted. “You of all people should know, Victoria: what life, exactly? I had no life… in that sense of the word. I couldn’t have it, I wouldn’t, I didn’t want to. I had some remnants of it… And I still don’t want to – several days a month with somebody like you is enough, isn’t it?” She chuckled humorlessly. “Nothing around me disproved that. And now – maybe that’s the point, that I still don’t talk, but now I don’t feel like I’m lesser for that!” Vista scowled. “I know I am powerful. I knew that before I had to deal with all the fuckery of this year. I realized it even more. I bear the responsibility to use my power, to prevent what I can…” She looked down, but still didn’t pull her hand away. “I mean, you probably heard my message.”

“Oh, more than once, believe me,” Victoria tried to sound light-hearted.

“I doubt it’s possible for me to have that ordinary life. You always feel like a monster… a pretender for letting yourself relax,” Vista didn’t miss how Victoria winced sadly. “But do you know why exactly I can’t really regret it? I think I finally feel, at the very least, like it’s more or less me who is making the mistakes.”

“That does not sound very great.”

“Maybe.” She snorted. “But do you know how nice it feels that one of the scariest capes on the East Coast considers me an equal and actually listens to me? Not pretends to!” Vista threw up her arms. “I don’t receive these bright condescending smiles anymore – the ones which meant not to hurt, because I can’t be trusted to accept something tough. I don’t see how people stop treating me as something approaching an adult the second I take off my armor! And I do what I can without being stuck in reports and essays about how I could prevent the escalation of the situation where some Merchant junkie shot at me the second he heard from afar ‘This is the PRT’!” Vista continued talking as Victoria slowly pulled her closer, and didn’t stop when she felt an almost intangible touch of Victoria’s forcefield, right now weirdly warm and comfortable. “When I talk to Foil about weapons, I know I don’t have to pretend that I heard all that from reasonable adults, and that I, of course, won’t put this knowledge to practice. And when I broke down in Skitter’s arms, I knew she understood, and I felt I didn’t need to play the big damn hero in order to be somebody deserving that...” Vista closed her eyes and pressed to Victoria’s side, letting out a shaky sigh. 

Victoria never was the one to let the silence stew, but she still waited for about half a minute, letting… them both just be.

“Hey. I’m sorry, little V.” She said quietly, hugging her friend with one arm.

“For what?” Vista muttered.

“Don’t know. For not preventing that, maybe?”

“I’m not sure you could.”

“Doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have tried,” Victoria said firmly.

“To be completely honest, I’m just not sure it can be done for me. Not… at this point. At times, Vicky… at times I feel like one day – sometime after my first battle, first scar, first solo arrest, first person who died in my arms – the real Missy Biron just didn’t come back from her patrol,” Vista’s voice was almost devoid of emotion. “I said I broke down in Skitter’s arms, and that is true by definition, but what does that matter if, maybe, I broke a long time ago?” Vista looked down and flexed her fingers, which, thanks to Amy, stopped aching. “Maybe she would be more weirded out bу… not weirding out that much because of where I live now. Last time you told me I was supposed to be the best of us – but I never thought that.”

“Because you’d care about literally anything rather than yourself.” Victoria sighed. “And would care even less about things you deserv- actually deserve, not something you’re supposed to have.”

“Just like with my ‘normal life’ – a small price to pay.”

“Shit, Missy, you’re making it really hard to decide who I should punch because of everything I feel right now,” Victoria laughed, but her voice was unexpectedly rough. “Maybe you for being so foolishly self-sacrificial, maybe a few heroes who, I suspect, can share the blame, maybe fucking Skitter for being, I dunno, Skitter… Maybe myself – right in my admittedly perfect teeth.”

“Amy got enough work as it is. And I would advise against punching Skitter,” Vista said calmly, letting herself put her head on Victoria’s shoulder.

“Is that so?” Victoria probably couldn’t help but sound mockingly. “You two are friends now, right?”

“Hard to say,” Vista answered sincerely. “But that’s not the point. I mean, you know I used to hate them. And, well, Foil. Despite them being the best option among the gangs by far – even when all of the gangs were still around. But the Undersiders proved that their dirty criminal methods work more often than not. And I saw people thinking they are not so bad – and that’s with us around, not exactly the worst or the least flashy-popular-whatever Protectorate.”

“Depends on where’s line for this best option,” Victoria said thoughtfully. 

“...Yeah. Yeah, you’re probably right. But I say: fuck this imaginary line modelled on the example of the cities like Los Angeles or whatever.” Vista snorted. “We don’t have a Triumvirate member here. We only had a bunch of gangs who crippled our city more and more every day – and for far worse things than fucking money. Okay,” she made a pause, “if we’re talking… I remember quite well, back in the first grade, how my mother was scared and how she punished me after I asked about weird symbols on the walls near my school. So that I’d never think to talk to gang members or something. And now I sometimes see the Undersiders’ symbols – not near the school. But I know that with them no kid will be suggested to try out candy and no highschooler will be forced into prostitution. And once again, if it means I’ll have to do,” she smiled wryly, “bad things, it’s just another pretty small price to pay. Maybe in the past I would have thought otherwise, but now I don’t have the patience to wait for the situation to fix itself, so that things would stay calm. Besides, it gets easier to justify with each new cold dead body on the street.”

“I guess we’ll have to talk about that too, Missy, though I’d become a hypocrite at some point... But I only wanted to say that you should learn to ask for help,” Victoria murmured. “You never do. And because of that, then suddenly…”

“I shouldn’t be your problem, should I?”

“You’re fucking impossible, that’s what you are.” Victoria shook her head. “Aren’t you tired of keeping all that inside yourself? Of keeping moving forward while your legs are bleeding?”

“I don’t… You say that like it’s a bad thing. Most heroes do that at some point, I think. You do that.”

“Because I also know how to make some time for myself!” Victoria rolled her eyes. “What would be the point of making the world better, if you aren’t going to live in it?”

“I think,” Vista’s face unwittingly grew sadder, “there’s no point in counting your chickens before that happens. Especially since I might not-” Vista trailed off, when Victoria pressed her closer, understanding what she wanted to say.

“Okay. Okay. Whatever.” Victoria grimaced. “Then… Make a goal. Just something. So you could allow yourself a moment and know it.”

“I…”

“Please.” Victoria didn’t even bother to hide the desperate note in her voice.

“Well… It’s… No S-Class threats in the US, maybe? Seems good enough for a first goal.”

“That would be good enough for a fourth or fifth goal, you know…” Victoria muttered exasperatedly.

“It’s hard.”

“Not harder than to arrest two capes on your own or to protect your team against Crawler.”

“And that is just a part of the job.”

“Obviously. I did already say that I don’t like how your new job is similar to the previous one?”

“Yep, you did. And I’ll tell you again that… well, some things became better.”

“Because now you can go on patrol instead of school?” Victoria huffed.

“That too.” Vista chuckled. “But I meant people. Even if I don’t like… don’t know some of the Undersiders, I saw Skitter and Tattletale without masks, for example. I may not be a people person, but it’s easy to recognize another person, who…” Vista broke off, searching for a word.

“Who also prefer to be capes rather than people?” Victoria said bitterly, raising her head to look at Vista properly. “Or who simply just as fucked up as you are, which makes it comfortable? Hard to fucking believe it.”

Vista carefully patted Victoria’s shoulder and stood up – though she intended to do that herself, Victoria just rose into the air from her sitting position, propping Vista up. Vista, letting out a brief smile, adjusted her jacket, suppressing her shivering, and turned to her friend.

“I am sorry as well, big V.” Vista looked into her eyes – those bright blue eyes, always full of emotion, especially with her around. It felt like a cold spike in Vista’s heart. “I won’t be your coolest partner in collaborations between the Protectorate and the New Wave, it seems.”

“Right,” Victoria drawled. “Things won’t ever be the same, will they?”

“Not if I have to say anything about it,” Vista replied calmly.

“Of course.” Victoria grinned just for a split second. “But will they get better?” It was obvious what she meant.

“If only I knew… But… I don’t think I was ever getting better in the past. There. Only as a hero, maybe.” Vista shrugged, wincing. “And even here I’m not sure. I have hope…” she said under her breath. “But there is only so much pain, only so much sorrow one can see before it becomes…”

“Before your friend,” Victoria interrupted her firmly and loudly, “picks you up, hugs you very-very tightly and then tells you that you’re one of the most inspiring heroes she’s ever met. Despite any labels.”

And, of course, Victoria followed through on her threat, being fast enough to catch Vista even if she’d try to step away. But Vista did not want to do that. Never would. 

Maybe I feel okay where I am now… But I don’t want to lose at least some things I had, even if it is selfish of me. And knowing that you two still do not stand against me, means so, so much.

“Fuck…” Vista muttered as she buried her face in Victoria’s shoulder. “You’re no one to me, Vicky, and yet you’ve done for me more than my fucking family. Oh.” She sharply looked up. “I… I didn’t mean it… i-in that way.”

“As far as I’m concerned, you might as well be an honorary Dallon.” Victoria smiled warmly. “Being a sister to me absolutely doesn’t require you to be blood-related to me, that we know.”

“I never had a sibling,” Vista remarked reasonably. “But… That does sound great,” she said much more quietly with a smile of her own.

“To be honest, I thought about something like that for quite some time, albeit not seriously,” Victoria admitted. “After… the Nine, and our family stuff… You’ve always been around as a friend, been… Well, I can’t say ‘the same’, I guess. You’ve grown, little V. Though it also makes me feel… sad.” She sighed. “I still remember how you used to smile fully and happily, even if back then we weren’t yet friends like now… And I remember the same about Amy… Damn it.” She shook her head. “I never manage to say important things in time, huh?”

“In the past I would say that it doesn’t matter when you say them or if you say them at all – knowing them is enough.” Vista pursed her lips. “Now I know better. But, at the very least, with me you weren’t late.” She let out a heavy sigh, turning away to look at the lights of the city. “Hey… Do you know what could make you give up on me?”

“…A year ago I’d say ‘nothing’, as a proper hero should,” Victoria said thoughtfully.

“Then it’s nice to see you’ve gotten smarter, hmm?” Vista glanced at her friend, making sure she did not sound offending.

“Uh-huh. You see, I believed in you, Missy, and I still do. I wouldn’t believe if I thought that you’re able to do something that will make me give up on you.”

“Even now?”

“I’ve made my share of mistakes too. Including, you know, things that can be considered unlawful. But more importantly, I do think that sometimes you have to do what’s right before doing what is… correct.”

“Thank you, Victoria. I mean it.”

“Come on.” Victoria held out her hand. “I’ll give you a lift and talk to you for another minute before I’ll have to face my family’s wrath.” She chuckled.

“It is late, yeah…” Vista thoughtfully stroked her chin. “I might even be a little late to my patrol.”

“Don’t tell me…”

“Don’t ask then, big V.” Vista elbowed her, fully aware that the forcefield won’t let Victoria feel that. “Let’s go.”

Chapter Text

“Alright…” Aisha drawled. “I give up. Why the hell are we here? I know you’re not the brightest person in this regard, but this might actually make it into ‘Ten worst dating spots of the year’ or something.”

Vista let out a long sigh and slowly shook her head, stepping closer to the edge. She should’ve probably needed to get offended at that one particular part of Aisha’s remark, but honestly, Aisha was absolutely right and Vista wasn’t ashamed of that. Almost.

“This is not a date. I already said that.”

“Whatever makes you sleep better at night.” Aisha snickered. “So-o-o…”

“But why ‘worst’, though?” Vista glanced at her. “An interesting view, at least.”

Aisha stood closer and looked around: the mountains were very close now, and really could be considered as something interesting and even monumental  – though obviously not as interesting as any actual city where humans could live. But everything else, which meant a whole lot of white and grey square-shaped stone blocks, large mostly square-shaped mounds with passageways and, of course, various skid and track marks, made her feel more bored than everything else. It was just another abandoned facility near their city, where people once worked, and nowadays it was slowly rotting away. And no one cared, probably.

Though the fact that they got to look at their surroundings from a height of about twenty feet of chiseled stone, was a little bit cool. It was getting dark already, but for now the sun still provided enough light for white stones to gleam a little.

“Only you can call a fucking quarry interesting.”

“Anything that’s not a view I saw for my entire life works. Besides, there are some… weirdly… thrilling vibes?” Vista said uncertainly. “Almost like a horror movie, but since there won’t be any ghosts or monsters, it’s nice.”

“We gotta have a horror movie night,” Aisha muttered to herself.

“Hmm, we could… Haven’t had a lot of good laughs in ages,” Vista commented absentmindedly, not noticing Aisha’s thoughtful look. “Okay, so, the quarry.”

“I’m all ears. Well, seventy percent ears for sure.”

“Right.” Vista rolled her eyes. “As you probably know, this place is abandoned and nobody really cares about it. Still a property and stuff, yadda-yadda, you get it. And since that means we can do lots of things here mostly uninterrupted – believe when I say this, the police don’t bother to check here unless for an actual reason…” Vista trailed off, seeing how Imp moved her mask and treated Vista with the most suggestive and simultaneously shit-eating grin she had ever seen. “I’m also doubting why I should bother.”

“‘Cause I agreed to go all the way out here?” Aisha tilted her head, continuing to smile. “Though I could now lie on my coach, drink hot chocolate and read The Odyssey, you know!”

“The Odyssey?” Vista raised her eyebrows.

“Yes?” Aisha crossed her arms over her chest, suddenly a little defensive. 

“Huh.”

“What?”

“Been some time since I read something properly, that’s all,” Vista murmured, shrugging. “I’m kinda jealous, I guess? Though I would absolutely expect you to read… Hmm. Something funny? You know, not serious.”

“And why is that?”

“You are…” Vista trailed off.

Imp didn’t answer, only tilting her head and staring back. Vista noticed how she was tapping her foot.

“People like to read about things that they don’t usually get to experience, right? Sure, you aren’t traveling to an unknown land with a cyclops and sirens, but…” Vista chuckled humorlessly. “We have enough of seeing teammates being hurt and fighting for our lives against dangerous enemies.”

“...Uh-huh,” Aisha replied slowly. “Right.” And then she suddenly laughed. “That. What else I could’ve expected from my goody-two-shoes…”

“I’m sorry?”

“Forget it. We were talking ‘bout a reason?”

Vista allowed herself to smile and went to one of the stone blocks near her, which she lowered to the level of her waist with a wave of her hand. Then she reached out into one of the pockets of her cloak and pulled out a dirty yellow box – and even if she turned a little so that Aisha could see how the box easily appeared from a pocket which was half as smaller than the box, she didn’t scold herself for showing off. Aisha liked watching her power at work, so why not?

“Ammo.” Vista patted the box after she put it on the stone block. “And your gun.” She held out a handgun to Aisha, holding it by the barrel. “Already loaded.”

“Okay, consider me interested,” Aisha commented, grabbing the gun.

“I never was given the opportunity to correct that before, but now… Well… I guess I’d want my teammates,” Vista glanced at Aisha, “to be more or less proficient with a number of tools that can save lives and deal with enemies. As I learned, Skitter and Tattletale are goddamn cheaters, Foil makes do without guns… Parian doesn’t want to.” She sighed sadly. “Regent said something akin to ‘eh maybe and fuck off’, and I didn’t yet talk with Grue and Bitch. Maybe I should, like, in general,” Vista muttered. “And that leaves you.”

“So you expected me to agree, huh?” Imp tried to twirl the handgun in her hand to look at it, but Vista very quickly got to her and slapped her wrist.

“Hey!”

“For a moment you pointed it in my direction. Don’t ever point the gun at somebody if you aren’t going to shoot them!”

“Come on, I-”

“Never!” Vista raised her voice. “And I’ll tell that to all of you!”

At least she didn’t put the finger on the trigger right away…

“Look at her, always ready to follow the rules.” Aisha smiled wryly. “How did you even manage to leave?”

“It’s common sense,” Vista huffed. “You don’t try to lick a live wire, do you?”

“Maybe I’ll try it out,” Aisha replied only for the sake of an argument. “Besides, you do know I know how to shoot, remember?”

“No.” Vista pursed her lips. “The last time you made a shot from like six feet – which even a kid can do – almost deafening us both in the process, and my power did the rest. More training never hurts anyway.”

“Ugh, you remind me of my teachers.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“I didn’t have the pleasure to get signed up for the Wards, and yet at the same age as you I’m running around in a silk bodysuit without thinking of school. What the hell do you think?” Aisha tapped Vista on the side.

“...That could mean many things,” Vista mumbled. “But I think I got it.”

“Good girl!” Aisha said with a smirk, easily dodging Vista’s poke. “Now what?”

“You’re holding a .32 with a suppressor. Hopefully, it’ll be enough to protect our ears – we don’t have proper protection anyway,” Vista drawled. “And I got this ready before asking you.” She, of course, didn’t mention how weird she was feeling while drawing that, simultaneously thinking that Aisha would be stupid not to agree, and that the idea itself was stupid for everybody else except Vista herself.

Vista made a hand pass, making another one of the big stones lower, and let Aisha see five big red round targets which she drew with just a chalk. Another movement – and four out of five of them started bending and moving away almost into the mountain.

“Convenient,” Aisha hummed and started to aim at the closest target, which was just opposite of her. But then she turned to Vista, who let out a weird sound and immediately looked away.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Vista cleared her throat.

“Do we need to talk about talking again?” Aisha rolled her eyes hard enough to make it seen even through the mask – or so she thought.

“...I just wanted to say that as long as I’m alive, you will shoot with one hand only if your other hand is broken, Imp.” Vista thoughtfully touched her chin. “That would also sound like I’m a teacher, but that’s important so I wouldn’t care… But I also thought that in our line of work that might be needed more often than never.”

“Huh. Damn, are there really so many rules?”

“The implications of your words are sincerely scary.” Vista shook her head. “I guess a lot of people think the same, but holy shit. Most of them aren’t Skitter, for example.”

Aisha let out a laugh and made the first shot. The bullet, to Vista’s slight surprise, did hit the center.

The easiest target, but still… She’s got some experience, I guess. Not as much as I have… More than ninety-nine percent of fourteen year old girls in the world?

“Eh, I expected better from a suppressor,” Aisha emphasised the word, rubbing her ear with a free hand. “I saw enough movies about assassins!”

“Uh-huh, and in movies people also can shrug off a knife to the stomach.”

“It’s just so quiet here! Usually when I gotta shoot, there’s, like, screaming and explosions and stuff all around… You know, makes it easier.”

“Hmm, true…”

Aisha took a breath and started aiming again. But before she could pull the trigger, Vista slowly put her hand on the barrel. 

“What?”

“Lean forward a little bit.” Vista patted Aisha on the upper back. “And maybe spread your legs a bit more.”

“It certainly is not a date,” Aisha snickered, “but something that comes after one.”

“A stance like that will get you better results,” Vista said calmly, frowning.

“Well, I shot at people just fine before…”

“Maybe, but you want to have a forward center of gravity when you shoot like this.” Vista then touched Aisha’s shoulder, moving it a little – just like she was once shown in the shooting club. “I doubt we’ll ever get to a lot of long-range fighting, and for close combat, when you need to fire in a rapid manner, you’ll need stability of your arms more then… steadiness, I guess. You know, less aiming, more actual shooting.” She gently adjusted the position of Aisha’s unmoving hands. “Your grip in itself is good, at least. Still with me?” She looked at Aisha, who didn’t try to insert another comment.

“...Yeah. Yep. Rapid manner, okay.”

Vista raised an eyebrow, seeing how Imp suddenly started preferring to look at the gun rather than at her – and Aisha always seemed to prefer having eye contact when talking. She wasn’t sure if it was another attempt at a joke, so she just continued.

“That helps to deal with recoil, especially if you make several shots in a row. And if we have to shoot, then… Well, probably it’s something serious, and it’ll need more than one bullet. I need only one sometimes, but that’s when I have an advantage of surprise. Against ordinary humans,” Vista finished thoughtfully. 

Aisha didn’t answer – only waited for Vista to move away, and then almost immediately made three shots at another target farther away. 

“Don’t know…” Aisha pursed her lips. “Easier to aim, maybe… But I didn’t hit the center.”

“Better control – less muzzle flip,” Vista said approvingly. “Try again.”

Vista wasn’t sure how much time they spent there: she could keep track of time fairly well when she was training, but Aisha, obviously, didn’t do things in the same way. And, just as obviously, Vista spent some time teaching her teammate the things she knew – and trying to break some of Aisha’s habits, like jerking the trigger hard enough for Vista to notice – apparently, that’s what people did in movies as well. After a few attempts Vista firstly made several shots herself, and then had to lean over Aisha’s shoulder and let her shoot a whole magazine worth of bullets while keeping her hands on Aisha’s hands in order to show a proper example. At the very least, Aisha didn’t sound displeased.

“You know, I was thinking…” Aisha started to reload once again – thankfully, Vista brought a lot of ammo. “How do you know this stuff well, if heroes don’t use guns?”

“Usually they don’t,” Vista corrected her. “And they use some non-lethal weaponry – and also tinkertech stuff. Though the former is a… complex topic as well.” She sighed, remembering how Kid Win was chewed out for his cannon. “Though if you mean, like, firearms, then yes: in a nutshell, most of the time heroes are forbidden from using weapons that can be associated with, eh, an intent to kill. Trust me, I heard all about this, I know,” she drawled. 

“Well, if I had to guess,” Aisha said with a smirk, “now you disagree with this… what, policy, miss walking armory?”

“Disagreed for some time.” Vista shrugged her shoulders. “And when I started to disagree, I went looking for a way to train, because it might’ve come in handy one day.”

“Seems pretty obvious that it might, if you ask me.”

“Yes. There are… a number of reasons why this policy exists – you know, this whole bunch of policies and tactics and stuff.” Vista sighed, looking away. “Incidents like the one in Stamford in the nineties, or… Damn it. Lots of things.” She fell silent for a couple of seconds, letting Aisha shoot three more times and nod contentedly to herself. “Maybe I should feel like a hypocrite.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You could say that this policy is… okay – not going to really delve into talking about its effectiveness – it was getting results.” Vista grimaced. “That’s what they would say. What they would always say. And I’m not supposed to question things beyond that. But not here.” She sneered. “Like the stuff Skitter and I talked about… Like in stories: does the village keep feeding the dragon with one of their own every year or try to pick up arms and suffer worse in order to stop sacrifice? But hey, at least villains use guns less than they used to!”

“Kinda like a trolley problem, hmm?” Aisha asked nonchalantly.

“Worse, I’d say.” Vista shook her head, and after a moment, suddenly threw up her arms. “This trolley went off the rails long ago. They say that vigilante justice isn’t the answer, but as I see it now, it… rarely appears without people asking the question! There were many reasons, but I just don’t want to care anymore! Not about Brockton Bay’s geography, not about the post-Marquis power vacuum, not about rules and orders!”

Aisha sighed quietly and patted Vista’s shoulder with her free hand – though she was quite sure that her partner was used to guns enough so that even their sound wouldn’t interrupt her.

“Maybe I’m not the one who should hear that, just saying,” Aisha remarked. “At the very least, I hardly have these moral qualms.” She chucked.

“That’s the point,” Vista grumbled. “They wouldn’t want to hear. I shouldn’t be able to know better, after all.” She let out a breath through her teeth. “Who cares if this policy just makes doing truly fucked-up shit less comfortable for villains – but doesn't stop them from doing it? And here?! We had trouble even treating the symptoms! I could show you the scars I got from those fights which we tried not to escalate – and I’m not the only Ward with them! I am to blame for some of them, sure, but damn it!”

Vista abruptly stopped, when Aisha silently held out the handgun to her.

“...A bad idea to use a deadly weapon when you’re not calm, Imp.”

“Well, you should get used to fighting while not being a PRT robot, eh?”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Aisha quipped. “Don’t care, honestly, was it only you or all of you, but now try it out.”

Vista weighed the gun in her hands and took a deep breath: maybe it was her experience, maybe just another of her quirks… or, maybe, the consequence of her deep-seated fear of being found out – fear of losing her title of a hero, of losing everything she had. She couldn’t simply stop – didn’t want to, even enjoyed that little rebellion – so she decided that she’d have to be good enough with her guns so as not to give another reason to be seen as a wrong one. 

It was very simple to return to that mindset, very simple to lock away emotions, leaving only this feeling of the pistol grip and the image of the target. But this time… Here…

“I’m tired anyway.” Aisha yawned and sat down on the stone block. “But my teacher can show me a master-class, at least?”

Vista didn’t answer, only swiftly raised her gun and shot three times at the farthest target.

“Not bad,” Aisha noted, still a little annoyed that she didn’t manage to hit the center of that target even once. “Imagining Hookwolf in its place?”

“You have no fucking idea how many people I imagine in such moments,” Vista answered quietly.

“That’s probably true… I don’t take time to remember everyone who we needed to take down.” Aisha waved her hand.

“Lucky you,” Vista grunted and made another two shots. “I don’t know how any of you can do that, to be honest,” she continued bitterly. “I’ve seen it all after three years here – I watched,” she aimed at the next target, “and watched,” and shot, “and watched!” and shot again – was shooting until the handgun clicked, letting her know that the magazine was empty. “Watched how villains taunted us for helping people with a wrong skin color, watched our city burn, watched people bleeding out on the street! You know, if, for example, one day the gangs would decide to start a free-for-all, I doubt that we would be able to stop them before half the city would be destroyed! It weighs on me still!” She turned around and shoved the gun in Aisha’s hands. “Our city hardly ever saw better days – and then we got the Slaughterhouse fucking Nine! Then Coil tries to make a play bigger than his usual stuff, and we learn that he was one of us, and that his fucking mercs had more tinkertech weapons than us! And when these things happen, other fuckers, like those who sit and lurker in the dark waiting for a chance to strike and feast on others, to kill – because they got an excuse like a kill order! Then the Teeth! Then scavengers like the Orchard and the Fallen! And we’re simply trying to keep up with all that – which, of course, means we don’t give up on fighting you while other people get made into puppets and living scarecrows!”

“We won’t let that happen again,” for the first time today Aisha let herself be more or less serious. “No one can come to our territory to stir shit up and then just leave.”

“I’m here because I think you’ve got a better chance, Imp. But I don’t believe that won’t happen.” Vista shook her head and leaned against the stone block, feeling Aisha’s shoulder with her back. “In any case, so that wouldn’t happen, I have to be ready. Among other things, be ready to put a bullet between the eyes of anyone who comes here to do something that can cause deaths of innocents. No more foam grenades and tranquilizers.”

“Don’t be all bloodthirsty – you’ll damage our reputation.” Aisha chuckled quietly.

“Hmpf. You think any part of me is glad that in order to do my job I have to carry a crate of armor-piercing rounds, Imp?” Vista said with contempt. “Okay, to be actually useful. I can chase muggers and threaten them with my fucking zip-ties all day, and so what?! I saved this city several times, risked my life more times than I can count, volunteered every time… And yet I hardly ever felt like I really changed something except the most obvious. I did… well, not a lot, but something… but what…” Vista cowered, looking down and hugging herself. “Maybe I never was good at being a hero, if I can’t… If I can think like that. But how can you not want all those monsters dead?!” She raised her voice. “One bullet for one grave on our cemeteries – and every Empire or ABB cape would get a pound of lead!”

“Don’t know. Not a problem for me.” Aisha snorted. “But who the hell cares if you’re a hero or not?” She firmly put her hands on Vista’s shoulders, not letting her turn around to probably make a biting remark. “You know it yourself: you do a damn good job you shouldn’t really be doing – but we all do it, because, how Skitter says, someone has to! Maybe we don’t share your tendencies, but we’re also here and we’ll fight alongside you, we’ll protect people! Because, for some unknown reason, they count on us to protect them! And there are people who think you’re right!” She leaned over Vista’s shoulder, making sure she was heard. “You’re a hero for them! Hell, some people even thank me, though my hands have blood on them and not shining armor!”

“Maybe.” Vista slowly nodded. “Yeah. That I know – people count on me, no matter the team. Even if that’s the team I used to hate as well… Funny thing, that.” She sighed. 

“You’re with us now, yup. Let heroes do all that, eh, explicitly heroic stuff.” Aisha rolled her eyes. “We’re here to make those we fight feel fear. Something like that.”

“In the past I… thought I would never want to give up the right to call myself a hero.” Vista pursed her lips. 

Shadow Stalker would totally get a laugh out of this, I think. Would probably imagine that she was one of the reasons for this somehow, would imagine that I, from her perspective, finally stopped being a wimp. But I will never believe she’s capable of understanding what it means to fight for other people’s sake… instead of lashing out on random thugs. 

“I mean…”

“No, no. In that sense, I gave that up already, I know. And I don’t really regret that, to be honest. For more than one reason – the reason I never mentioned to Glory Girl, and probably won’t ever mention to others…” Vista closed her eyes. “I may be a lost cause,” she smiled wryly, “but my friends… ex-teammates are not. I don’t mind doing dirty work, if they won’t have to.”

“That’s great to hear,” Aisha commented. “Though I guess I knew that already. About dirty work, I mean. And I also think that you shouldn’t baby all those big damn heroes…”

“I can save at least some of them from seeing things that will change them forever – not in a good way. That’s what matters,” Vista said, a little annoyed. “I would know. Even if I learned to live with it. They’ll get their share of dead bodies and tragedies anyway.”

They absolutely will. But a few well-placed bullets can help Toggle or Crucible make it into the Protectorate without several particular traumas. Yeah… That’d be nice. 

And, maybe, they won’t want to leave their profession for any reason. Right, Victoria? You are going to be a great teacher – arguably it’s even more needed than just another cape – but sometimes I do think that Glory Girl from last year wouldn’t choose that. As someone once said, we are shaped by our losses… 

“Well, maybe you’ve got a point, though we’re all, like, capes. At the very least, judging from what I read, in most cases people like you are either a shivering broken mess or an emotionless and cold broken mess,” Aisha answered nonchalantly. “You know, after all that stuff… You handled it well enough.”

“Jury’s still out on that one.” Vista stood up. “It’s almost dark. Guess we had enough practice for today?”

“Enough to now go and try out that new fancy coffee Parian got you.”

“How do you even know?” 

“I’m always lurking around, don’t forget!” Aisha laughed. “And she did boast ‘bout that to Tats, they two are self-proclaimed coffee connoisseurs or something.”

“Coffee is life, what can I say…” 

Usually Vista preferred semidarkness – her eyes were working hard and overtime every day, after all – but she obviously couldn’t work on her weapons without a proper lighting. And since the gun she used for the practice definitely sounded a little different from the norm in those last few shots, Vista was trying very hard to find a reason and deal with it as soon as possible – she always took care of her equipment, and nowadays it meant a lot more than it used to.

That also meant that right now she was hunched over her improvised workbench in the main room, fiddling with her small selection of instruments and gun parts… And very deliberately avoiding thinking about Aisha, who she didn’t actually invite into her home – but Aisha, as always, didn’t care about such insignificant things. Vista felt a bit awkward because of choosing to deal with her handgun first instead of getting to coffee, but honestly, Aisha would get to try this supposedly great coffee for free as it is. Besides, Aisha did say she didn’t mind. And Vista welcomed just a moment of time to herself, just her and somewhat usual, comfortable work.

Vista never was a people person, that she could admit any day. And sometimes Aisha was a little too much – but that Aisha knew and relished in being such a person. Though even if she was… Sometimes it also was a nice distraction. Like the last time they… well, went out. 

Or, maybe, Vista just wasn’t used to this amount of heart-to-hearts per week, which made her, among other things, a little nervous. After all, in the past it happened probably once in half a year – she rarely let herself look like she needed a heart-to-heart… or any help at all, since she had troubles with all that as it was; no matter what she did. And the specifics of their work didn’t let the Wards to be those kinds of friends often.

“Damn, you’re still not done?” Aisha’s voice suddenly rang out, instantly making Vista remember that she actually didn’t hear any commentary for several minutes.

“Sloppy work on your own weapons is absolutely unacceptable,” Vista replied, unwittingly frowning as she was looking over one of the parts.

“Do you ever do sloppy work? You would probably self-combust in that case,” Aisha laughed.

“Hope that’s a compliment.”

“Honestly not sure,” Aisha answered with enough sarcasm in her voice that it was easy to figure out how honest she actually was.

“You know, I-” Vista broke off and almost choked on the air as soon as she turned her head to Aisha – and all the words she had in mind immediately disappeared, when she realized why exactly Aisha came back into this room right now.

Oh. Oh, damn. 

“Are you going to stare at me all day?” Aisha raised an eyebrow, continuing to hold the mug of coffee in front of Vista. “If you hit your head while I wasn’t watching, yes, it’s coffee, and yes, I made one for you too.”

Vista didn’t react even to the dig, instead choosing to be silent and letting her eyes roam all over this extremely unusual sight: she looked at Aisha’s careless posture and her hands, which were holding the mugs – Aisha looked almost like at her home; for a moment she met Aisha’s eyes, noticing the mischievous glint in them; she felt weird, seeing that Aisha’s face expressed satisfaction – and Aisha’s little smile only made Vista feeling the thing that she felt even more; and the white mug, in any other time just a simple container for liquid, which Aisha held with its handle facing Vista for an obvious reason, at the moment probably meant something.

“...No strings attached, Missy. Yes,” Aisha said, a little surprised.

“...Right. Yeah. I know,” Vista mumbled.

“Take it, then?”

The mug was unexpectedly warm – not the usual kind of warm or almost hot, like the coffees she usually had.

“This is kinda sad,” Aisha continued, curling her lip.

“What did you expect?” Vista said, puzzled with herself because the words that came out of her mouth weren’t “fuck off”. “I’m a grown person, after all. I can do stuff by myself if I need something. Un… unexpected, that’s all,” she muttered, looking down.

When was the last time somebody did something like this for me without prompting – without an ulterior motive? I’m not sure if I can remember. Not big, actually heroic things, like Dennis’ decision to help me out, but…

I very rarely provided an excuse for such things, yes… Very rarely. How could I… How could Vista act otherwise?

“It’s great I’m not indulging your delusions, then.” Aisha shrugged her shoulders.

Vista let out a sound that could very generously be interpreted as a quiet laugh.

“Thank god you and Brian are, like, the only Undersiders who follow common sense in storing their food, because otherwise I wouldn’t bother with it.” Aisha rolled her eyes. “Taylor and Lisa don’t follow anything, they just somehow know how and where they both can place stuff based on their mood, and it’s totally insane. Sabah and Lily follow their own system – and just as in her shop, only Sabah can make sense of that mess, and Lily… pretends to, don’t know… I won’t even start about Alec…”

Vista let Aisha’s vibrant voice wash over her and took a sip. The coffee was unexpectedly tasty. Not overly weak, flavorful and soft on her tongue. Just hot enough, with a comforting smell – unlike the usual instant coffee. And the taste was unfamiliar for her – Aisha added milk and cream, and Vista never tried that. It was pretty nice. 

All that felt nice, actually. Maybe she was still in her armor, but that made her comfortable. It was nice sitting here, under the yellow room lights, listening to a person with whom she didn’t really have to pretend. It was nice not feeling a recent injury and forcing herself to forget about it – or faking the lack of one. It was nice to know that she could have this place to herself. It was nice to see that Aisha, just like Lily, could choose to spend her evening here, with…

Aisha suddenly stopped talking. Vista glanced at her and didn’t understand at first, why her companion’s face expression slowly changed. It became clearer only after Vista finally paid attention to the strange sounds right below her face – the coffee in the mug was moving just a little bit every time when one of her tears fell into it.

Vista abruptly stood up, almost knocking over her chair, and turned to the window, wrapping her arms tightly around herself. She shut her eyes and clenched her teeth, but it didn’t stop the first choked sob from coming out.

“I hate it,” Vista hissed. “Why does it have to happen every time?” she said with disgust. “Why… Why can’t I just feel good when I have a reason to?”

“Like I said back then: you hardly know what self-pity is,” Aisha said in a low voice. “I guess it’s easy to keep your mind in check when you do this every day. But when you don’t…”

“You a fucking shrink too?” Vista bit out.

“With all of you I might as well be.” Aisha sighed. “...I actually read some stuff on the topic, can you imagine?”

“No.”

“Fair enough…”

“Always hated going out of my way to avoid… this. This feeling,” Vista whispered. “I’m stronger than my traumas. I should be.”

“...That’s not really how it works, I’d guess,” Aisha paused. “Yeah. You might be stronger. But… This stuff may not be ready to be put behind. Even if you wanna put it behind you.”

The floor quietly creaked as Aisha shifted position – Vista for a moment imagined her putting her arms behind her back, like that pose some of the doctors did, which she always saw as somewhat arrogant. But Vista quickly dashed the thought.

“Though of course,” Aisha continued. “Since you continue to run around in your damn battered armor,” she huffed, “and take all that shit we see personally. Everybody’s shit but your own.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“That’s who I am. That’s what I signed up for. And despite everything, I’m proud of that,” Vista’s voice cracked just the slightest bit.

“Hey, Missy,” Aisha’s voice turned soft. “Mind turning around? Please?”

“Or what?”

“Nothing. Just asking.”

Or you could just go away and spare us both the awkwardness.

Vista furiously wiped her eyes with one of her hands – she didn’t take off her gauntlets when they came back here, so it was a little uncomfortable, but she was used to it. Her next movement was quick and forced, but Aisha didn’t react to that.

“Happy?” There were tears on Vista’s face still.

“Well, yeah, kinda. It’s better now, eh?”

“You are not that good-looking, Aisha,” Vista rasped.

“Agree to disagree,” despite the words, Aisha’s tone was gentle. “Want me to say ‘it’ll be alright’?”

“You have no idea how much I despise that word. ‘Alright’. And ‘fine’ too. Most of the time it’s empty consolations everyone says because that’s what they’re supposed to say.”

“That’s kinda true.” Aisha shrugged. “Yet I want to console you – that shouldn’t be too bad. Better than hearing you being a dumbass and trying to do everything at once.”

She put her mug on the table – right beside Vista’s mug – and held out her hands to Vista in a pretty obvious gesture. Though it was not really common for Vista.

Huh. If anything, no PRT shrink would risk calling me a dumbass.

Vista slowly and hesitantly reached out. Aisha, of course, took Vista’s hands without really waiting, pushed another chair closer with her leg and somewhat forcefully made Vista sit down alongside her.

Vista preferred not to look up, watching absentmindedly how their knees almost touched and their fingers above them almost intertwined. Aisha’s hands, just like the last time, were really warm. One could say they were not exactly pretty, with all the scratches and not exactly well trimmed nails… But Vista didn’t think so – in part because her own hands probably looked worse.

Aisha was close enough that Vista almost could feel the heat of her breath on her forehead. When was the last time she allowed anybody to be that close? Not just physically.

Vista didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know if there was something she should do. 

“Once again: why bother, Aisha? Bother with this… broken and moody thing you got, and the Wards got before you.” Vista said quietly, but firmly, and let out a bitter chuckle. “Sure, I am grateful. I truly, truly am, despite everything, but…”

“If you call yourself moody, then you really haven’t met a lot of ordinary people, have you?” Aisha raised an eyebrow. “Like wow, it’s almost double standards, but backwards.” She pursed her lips, when Vista only shrugged. “You know, I’m starting to understand Lisa a little better.”

“...Lisa?”

“If we’re gonna chat, you’ll have to listen.”

Vista sighed and raised her head – aside from several particular times, she always listened. Even if she anticipated that she wouldn’t like to hear what she would hear.

“Well… You see, eh-h… How should I… I love Brian. He’s my,” Aisha smiled, “real family, he loves me, and he always tries for me. And I like… respect other Undersiders for different things which I won’t say today because some of the things are my blackmail material and others you’ll need to learn yourself, and it doesn’t really matter anyway…” She thoughtfully tapped her fingers on the back of one of Vista’s hands. “All that aside… I didn’t really have a choice whether to work with them or not at the beginning, you know, a little before the Nine came. I mean, I did… But I obviously couldn’t give up being a real cape and help my brother out and stuff…” 

Yeah. Stuff. I can imagine how many things hide behind that word. I know.

“Lisa didn’t have a choice when the Undersiders were, huh, created. Taylor, in a way, was her choice. In… a lot of things.” Aisha couldn’t resist smiling suggestively, even if she was serious. “And I always kinda felt left out in regards to, pfft, ‘choices’. I had some things decided for me before I was even born!” She grimaced. “Sure, Tay can be the best leader since Alexander the fucking Great or something, but I didn’t get to vote for her, not really! I felt weird about Foil, but hell, here we are! I don’t like how my brother treats this whole thing, but I can’t make him change his mind! I didn’t even get to choose how my power worked!” She shook her head.

“...I guess that implies my situation is somehow different?” Vista murmured, mulling over Aisha’s words.

“Oh, look, somebody actually didn’t hit her head while I was making coffee,” Aisha grunted.

“You had no real impact on my decision, though,” Vista reasonably noted.

“And you still think that there’s nothing beyond your h- cape life.” Aisha rolled her eyes. 

“It’s not true… Less true than it was. But, I mean…”

“That’s the ‘but’ I always think about too,” Aisha suddenly agreed. “I told you already: I’ll always remain Imp… And I’ll never want to flip burgers in order to pay my bills and shit. But it’s also stupid to think I can just ask somebody out and believe they’ll be fine with me being Imp!” she exclaimed. “And though I totally can and will, I think I shouldn’t tell them that the Undersiders will always be at least just as important for me as whatever relationship we’ll have! Because it’s not ‘bout just the money, just friendship, just the opportunity to be able to smash a chair over a drug dealer or two…”

Vista briefly wondered what exactly it meant when she didn’t feel any strong repulse after the last few words.

“It’s about a chance, which I may quickly lose alongside my life ‘cause I’m a cape,” Aisha continued quietly. “And a stupid hope to find somebody who understands… It’ll always be somebody who’s already broken in one way or another, I got that. You know, as a cape. So then I’ll try to choose, at least… Somebody relatively attractive,” she muttered thoughtfully, “or powerful, or cool…”

Well, I had a few… criteria myself. Didn’t think about them for a long time, but… But. Your trust means a lot, Aisha. Maybe you even put too much trust in me. 

Now that’s a first, huh.

“One can only wonder who that might be,” Vista was sure she didn’t blush – it’s been a long time since the last such occasion as well. 

“Eh-h… You know what, think for yourself!” Aisha exclaimed, abruptly standing up. “I already told ya more than I wanted to!” She took a generous sip of her coffee and turned her head to Vista, meeting her eyes. “You’re not the only one who should get the chance to play hard to get!”

“Assuming I want to get…” Vista still felt wetness on her cheeks, and yet couldn’t help but smile wryly. At the very least, she absolutely could relate.

“Who wouldn’t, though?” Aisha, easily dropping all pretense at seriousness, smirked and bent down just a little bit, obviously trying to strike a pose.

“I think you’re not going to like the real answer.”

“Ugh.”

“But you’re actually right, you know.”

“I mean, of course I am, but about what in particular?”

“That crush I had…” After Aisha, it was far easier for Vista to approach this topic. “It was a crush on a hero, sure, but I usually was thinking more about… life without costumes: dinners, dates, weddings on the beach... Pretty stupid of me. With our lives it’s stupid not to choose somebody who understands.” Vista nodded.

“One can only wonder who-” Aisha broke into a laugh as Vista rolled her eyes. “Right, right. Well, don’t know ‘bout you, but I think that even if nobody swept me off my feet, I kinda have a soft spot for the person… who today improved my chances at living to see my big bro get married.”

Vista opened her mouth to reply… and closed after a few seconds of uneasy silence. But she forced herself to meet Aisha’s eyes again and let out a small apologetic smile. She didn’t know what was in her look – it was not pity, nor regret, nor sadness… Something not exactly joyful, but something she probably looked forward to experiencing again despite the uncertainty.

“A work in progress, isn’t it?” Aisha smiled surprisingly gently.

“Just like my whole damn life,” Vista murmured, clenching and unclenching her fingers – usually they always were tense when… things happened. “But, I guess… It’s nice to have a person who actually can give me a chance to find something new in that life, right?” 

Vista felt weird, not feeling the same usual itch to cling to something solid… real, like her helmet. But it wasn’t unpleasant.

“Maybe we’ll find out, Missy.”

Vista was sure Aisha didn’t know how the confidence in her voice made Vista feel something. But she didn’t know that having an actual answer – an answer like the one she got – meant for Aisha more than she hoped for.