Going down to Hero University to surprise Nora on her birthday had seemed like a good idea at the time. In retrospect, however, never - in the vast history of mankind, of the planet, of the universe – had a worse idea ever been conceived.

Nora was turning 18 – a big year – and this was her first semester away at college, her first time away from home. She was a tough girl – tough as nails – but it's not easy for anyone to strike out on their own, not even a nails-tough girl. And Nora wasn't a normal girl, and so it would be abnormally hard for her - because there's nothing lonelier than a secret. Even if it's a good secret and not a bad secret. Even if that secret is awesome super powers and an awesome superhero family, and even if, technically, within the confines of her college, that was not a secret that needed to be kept. (And, even if, technically, she wasn't alone as she might have been, since Billy was there too. But she looked after him, and not the other way around. And Phoebe wondered if Billy and Nora might be drifting apart at college, like she and Max had begun to do at that time. She wondered if that was another burden for her.)

Phoebe remembered her own first year…it hadn't been lonely, exactly, but the homesickness had been brutal. She had missed everything: her mother's overcooked eggs, the familiar scent of the laundry detergent her mother always used; her father laughing hysterically at Youtube videos, his goodbye bear hugs; Chloe's one-liners, Chloe's powers; Nora's misplaced bows, Billy's irrational deductions, their tea parties with Dr. Colosso; Max's daily pranks, Max accidentally setting something on fire with one of his inventions – a weekly occurrence, Max drinking her orange juice while she wasn't looking, the sound of Max rifling through the cupboards for a snack – an hourly occurrence, Max's leather jacket - which he sometimes let her wear when she was cold, Max's stupid stupid ring tone ("Hips Don't Lie").

A million small things that didn't seem very small once they were gone.

That had been hard on Phoebe, even though she had been excited, but Nora hadn't even wanted to live in the dorms – she had wanted to rent an apartment and live with Billy. Phoebe had been the one who had insisted to their parents that Nora give dorm life a try - for the experience, and to make new friends in her new environment – and so Phoebe felt partially responsible for how Nora might be doing as a dorm-dwelling freshman of only two months.

When she had suggested the university trip to Max, she had expected some resistance – it being an act of kindness and all - but he was on board right away. The twins had both graduated from Hero University three years previous. Max, of course, had wanted to attend Villain University, but their parents wouldn't pay for it, and so he was out of luck. After graduation, Max had gone on to be a mid-level employee at a private gadget firm, but it had gone belly-up just three weeks earlier, and – naturally - he had not been saving any of his income, and had been forced to move back home – temporarily - while he sought new employment.

Phoebe had been apprenticing with Ms. Marvelous, the premiere lady superhero in Metroburg, but "Ms. Marvelous" had become a "Mrs.", and was about to become "Mother Marvelous". It made sense to cut down on your superheroing when you had a bun in the oven – Phoebe could not imagine her flying around while in her third trimester – the skin-tight, shiny, scarlet-red leotard certainly wouldn't fit. But that didn't leave Phoebe any less uprooted. (And Phoebe suspected that Ms. Marvelous' retirement had something to do with the St. Gabriel's Children's Hospital fire a month earlier, and her inability to prevent it from claiming any victims. Ms. Marvelous had been so dejected in the week after. It was a harsh lesson for Phoebe about the challenges of crime fighting. It made her feel not entirely prepared.) But more-or-less Phoebe was ready to become a superhero in her own right – and she'd had a successful trial run during Ms. Marvelous' honeymoon - but she had decided to return home first to learn a few more lessons from the two best superheroes she had ever known – Thunder Man and Electriss.

(And to find some way to deal with the fact that what she truly dreamed of would never be.)

But Hank and Barb had had empty nest syndrome with two of the three youngest now away at college - and Chloe, with her teleportation power, school, and an active social life, was almost never around - and they had each taken larger bites than they could chew of hobbies, clubs, and committees. (Chloe suspected that actually their parents just wanted an empty nest, even though they didn't quite have one yet.) Unfortunately for them, the nest de-emptied itself further as both Phoebe and Max, poor and untethered, returned to their childhood home. Which left the twins pottering around the vacant house from morning 'til night while their parents were out at meetings and events, an awkward mix of bored and content, alone and together. Getting along and…not getting along.

A very awkward mix, in fact. So Phoebe, truthfully, wasn't entirely surprised when Max agreed to the day trip, even if it meant doing something uncharacteristically sweet. Like her, he was probably eager for a buffer between them. Someone else around to just make it…easier.

Phoebe had texted Chloe, because it would have been a hell of a lot easier if she had just teleported all of them there – she could certainly get a hall pass and fit it all in during a bathroom break - but after waiting an hour and a half for Chloe to either appear or reply, Phoebe decided their littlest sister was currently incommunicado, and they couldn't wait anymore or they would miss their window, and so they set out on their own, the long way. Phoebe found some banners and balloons in the attic before they left home and they were going to pick up an ice cream cake – Nora's favorite – when they were closer to the university.

"I can't believe little Nora's going to be 18," Phoebe ventured conversationally as she merged onto the freeway in her sensible little Volkswagen. (At one point Max had had his own car too, a red Mercedes Benz, but he had been forced to hand it over to his creditors.) They had gone out together only twice since they had both been home – both times to the grocery store. Sometimes Max liked to drive, sometimes he didn't. (It was the same in high school.) Usually she preferred it when he did – because when he was in the passenger seat and she was behind the wheel all he did was criticize her driving. Ironic, since he was the reckless one behind the wheel. The reckless one always. And ironic, since he didn't even have a car anymore. But he seemed easygoing enough of a passenger today - Dr. Colosso on his lap and a bag of chips in his hand. He was quiet, and absorbed in the sights out of his window (orange trees and leaves falling) and the crunching of his Doritos. (He only winced once when she was too passive about changing lanes, sighing with disapproval.)

"She's always been…old," Max observed. "Her turning 18 seems like more of a formality."

Phoebe looked sharply at him – the last thing she had been expecting was a penetrating remark. During the past few weeks - their unpaid, involuntary unemployment staycation – Max had been not only uncharacteristically quiet, but downright uncommunicative. Most of his replies were monosyllabic – better defined as grunts than words. At first she thought he was depressed about the loss of his job, but he had a resilient nature and it had gone on too long. It was starting to feel personal.

She had tried to engage him in discussions about his city life – his thrilling job, his fancy apartment, his nights on the town with a girl on each arm. (As little as she had seen him, she had seen enough to witness all of this.) They had paid him well at Sidious Tech and he had been living it up until the money ran out. (Max had insisted the company wasn't run by supervillains – Phoebe wasn't convinced. Sarkany Maldeck, the owner and CEO, had evil mastermind written all over him, and the mission statement she had found on the website sounded more like an anarchic manifesto than a business plan. Max had also insisted that Sidious Tech hadn't been shut down by the S.E.C.; she was not convinced of the latter either.) But Max had no inclination to talk about that bygone era. He answered her questions without details, as if it were a hostile police interrogation and he had a lawyer whispering in his ear to say only what was necessary.

And whenever she tried to tell him about her nights on the street fighting crime with Ms. Marvelous, or the sunny days of the uptown life she had shared with Cherry – who was a burgeoning social-media consultant at a major magazine – their yoga in the park and the nice café with the amazing chocolate croissants where they went every morning, he would shut her down. And usually leave the room as well.

There were some good moments. She spent a few days baking, and always called him up from his lair (which their parents had left intact, unlike Phoebe's room, which had been given to Nora) to lick the bowl, and then again to try the product fresh out of the oven. Sugary baked goods earned her a smile or two, sometimes a full sentence even. They watched a few movies together – he would relax as he got involved in the story, sinking comfortably into the sofa and yelling humorously at the TV. He always glanced at her furtively to see if she was laughing at his jokes. She always was. She liked his stupid jokes, she liked that he cared whether she thought they were funny or not.

And then there was Elfstar.

He refused to play Scrabble with her, and Scattergories, and checkers, so one day she plopped down on the sofa next to him, picked up a controller, and kept pressing buttons until he caved and let her play his new video game with him. Land of Elfstar – something that sounded really stupid but was actually really cool. It was the most popular game out that year, but Phoebe had thought that was some sort of collective insanity until she started playing it and got hooked. At first his greatest amusement came from how quickly she would get killed, even though they were working as a team and it should have been a nuisance to him - sometimes he even arranged for her to be slain in the most gruesome way possible. ("Double fire arrow though the stomach! Classic!") Her preferred character, Sister Amarthina, bore quite a resemblance to herself, which gave him even more delight. (His own favorite, Lord Jayesen, was a gangly ginger. Not the fiercest looking elf in the land but his arrows were devastating.)

But then Max started protecting her, even as he was vocally eviscerating her for her "truly astonishing lack of skill", even when it put the success of their mission at risk. She had become invested in her character and in her character's survival, and she took it hard when she would die in the game. Whimpering, sighing dispiritedly. Making generally sad and/or puckered faces. So Max started protecting her at all costs until she developed the skills to hold her own.

They had become so immersed in the game that it was activating their thundersense – which was probably the only way they were able to win it so quickly. (Though Max probably wouldn't have said it was quick at all.) They developed an unspoken coordination, traded off as lead harmoniously (Max probably would have insisted he was lead the entire time, but he wasn't), and teased each other in Elf-speak at the dinner table. (-"You pass the butter like you kill goblins – too late to do anyone any good!" -"At least I didn't waste all my teltaka on a Mantikan sword that won't even pierce their armor!" Or their favorite – the catchphrase from the game: "It only takes one spark of the Elfstar!" – always said with an accompanying raised arm, of course – "It only takes one meatball of the Spaghetti!", "It only takes one shot of the Vodka!"…"Or maybe two!")

It had been an exciting distraction, and the all-too-quick completion of the game left a hole in their temporary new lives. That had been four days ago. Monday. They beat the game, and now she felt like she needed an excuse to be with him, and he was back to treating her like a roommate's cantankerous cat rather than his…his Phoebe.

Maybe the trip to visit Nora would provide another distraction.

Despite the sentiment of her inane small talk, she agreed with him about their little sister. Nora was…old. She had been old at 8 and now she was old at 18. Nora had always seen the world with the eyes of someone who had been through all of it before. She wasn't always wise, but she didn't get too hung up on things that didn't really matter. It was like she already understood that life was too short for that. If she was frivolous, it was because she was living in the moment. If she was harsh, it was because she was honest. And if she was single-minded, or even selfish, it was because she didn't give up on what she wanted.

"It's a good thing Billy's got her," both Max and Phoebe said in unison, following his statement. It might have been a joke, and they might have laughed at the jinx - but it wasn't, and they didn't. Phoebe smiled lightly at her brother as if to say what a twin thing, to say the exact same thing at the exact same time. But he didn't return it, and swiveled his head back to his window.

What a twin thing, to barely speak to me and leave my smile hanging.

Jerk.

"Yeah, that kid's an idiot," Dr. Colosso said. He meant it, but he meant it affectionately.

Even Max smiled at that.

Billy's particular brand of…boyish naïveté – his guileless gullibility, his ingenuous innocence, his often directionless enthusiasm, his attraction to shiny objects - was not something that seriously troubled anyone in the family. Billy was Billy. He always would be Billy. But maybe the only reason they didn't worry about Billy was because he had Nora.

That's why it wasn't a joke. That was why they didn't laugh. Billy had Nora. Nora had Billy. But who did they have?

Phoebe hadn't been lonely at H.U. And in Metroburg she had Cherry and Ms. Marvelous and a whole line-up of friendly acquaintances and flirtations. (And she had Max, too, on the rare occasion. Though not as often as she would have liked. They both lived in Metroburg but it might as well have been two different cities for all that they saw each other. She suspected he had been avoiding her…She had always just assumed he had been kidding all those times he had said he couldn't wait to get away from her. But maybe he hadn't been.) It wasn't loneliness. But it was something. A void. It was a quick pang first thing in the morning and last thing at night. It was a chink in the structure of her life.

"We all have a thread of dissatisfaction in our lives," Cherry had told her. It sounded like a line lifted right out of the magazine she worked for. Cherry tended to cry all of her heartbreak out in one agonized burst and then move on. She didn't understand. She didn't know what it was like to not know what you wanted but to want it all of the time.

Billy had Nora, Nora had Billy, Phoebe had no one.

"I hope his grades are all right," Phoebe fretted."What will he do if he gets kicked out?"

Max looked her over, and her eyes were on the road but she thought she saw the shadow of a smile.

"He's got 'pizza delivery' written all over him," opined Dr. Colosso, laughing at his own joke. Max smacked him lightly. "What? With his speed he'll be the best in the biz. He deserves to be the best at something."

"If he flunks out of school, then he'll find something else. Another school, another path. Whatever. He'll be fine. And if we have to take care of him, well then…we will," Max said pragmatically. No jokes. No bullshit. Just a simple it'll be fine because we'll make it fine.

It was Phoebe's turn to smile. She was the worrier; Max didn't worry. If he couldn't move, then he twisted the shape of the world to fit him where he stood. That was the Max she knew, not the sullen companion of the past few weeks. Well, it wasn't exactly like him to be so thoughtful or giving, but he was a little more back to old self.

But she didn't quite buy into his optimistic tone. Billy sounded like a pet project – If I can't be happy, I'll make sure that Billy is. Billy will have everything that I can't have. Perhaps Phoebe didn't have the evidence to reach that conclusion, but somehow she sensed it.

Billy didn't usually go to the twins for help. He went to Nora. But when he did call on Max for aid, Max gave it freely, without pretense. He always….well, usually…had Phoebe's back, but Max relished the hero big brother role when it came to Billy.

"Besides, he graduated from high school, didn't he?" Max reminded her.

"Barely," Phoebe responded, though she knew that wasn't fair. Billy almost failed his senior year, but only because he tanked his grades on purpose. Nora had skipped 6th grade – which, according to her, wasn't that difficult to do if you really wanted to do it – and Billy had decided – on his own - that he would repeat 12th grade so that the two of them could matriculate together.

It was not one of his better ideas.

After stern lectures from everyone – including Nora - he got back on track, graduated, and then took a year off to "work" before he and Nora headed off to H.U. side-by-side. Phoebe wasn't sure how much work he actually did during that year – from what she could tell he had joined up with a painting crew that only needed him for a few hours a week, which left him plenty of time to travel the world. One Tuesday she had called him during her lunch break, and he had been building houses in Guatemala earlier that day. Multiple houses. In Guatemala. Before lunch. That was Billy at his best. All heart.

When Billy became a superhero, Nora would be the one tagging along.

"Maybe I don't give him enough credit," Phoebe conceded.

They didn't talk much during the rest of the drive. Which was pretty typical for what their relationship had become. Max turned on the radio and chose a station he knew she wouldn't enjoy – but she didn't mind, because it felt like the good old days: Max being his intentionally antagonistic self, but intentionally antagonistic in a way that was devoted. She fought him a little on it, but only for show. Only because she knew it was only fun for him if she was antagonized. And when it came to Max, she didn't have as much pride as she ought to, but she had enough to at least hide the fact that she was just grateful for his attention, no matter how he chose to give it to her.

It was pathetic.

When he finished his chips, he wiped the Dorito dust off his index finger in a streak down her cheek. She rolled her eyes and pulled an individually-wrapped moistened towelette from the glove compartment, wiping her face and then handing it to him to clean his hands He made an amused study of the other ordered and tightly-packed treasures to be found in there – a flashlight, a granola bar, a charger for her mePhone, a bottle of water, a toothbrushing kit, etc. - smiling at her all the while. She recognized his "Oh, Phoebe" expression - of course she was worried about Billy's grades, of course she was prepared for everything and everything. Phoebe was Phoebe was Phoebe.

*/*/*

Max grew impatient – and cold (even in his leather jacket) - while she deliberated over frozen cakes. Due to the spontaneous nature of the idea, she had not been able to call head and order one to be specially made, and the selection at the store near campus, wich was smaller than she remembered, left something to be desired. The entire bakery section had been taken over by Halloween, which was only a few days away. The choice was between one covered in soccer balls that read "Happy 11th birthday" and one with red flowers dedicated "¡Feliz Cumpleaños, Ana!"

"The one with the flowers, duh," Max said, brushing roughly past her and picking up Ana's cake.

"It's in Spanish!"

"So? It says 'Happy Birthday'."

"Yeah: 'Happy Birthday…Ana'. It's got someone else's name on it!"

"Perfect – we'll get a discount. Ana, Nora, what's the difference? Practically the same name."

"You don't think she'll care?" Phoebe was more than skeptical.

"She shouldn't care: cake is cake."

"'Shouldn't care' is not the same."

"It'll be great. She likes flowers. It's Ana's loss. What's that girl's problem anyway?" He was already at the check-out.

Sighing, Phoebe followed.

"It's too bad they didn't have any cakes decorated with maces or uzis," Max bemoaned. "Pink ones, of course." Phoebe laughed. A cake covered in pink machine guns described their sister perfectly. Sugar and spice and everything…violent. The girl was a bayonet in a pink bow.

*/*/*

Max picked the lock to Nora's dorm while Phoebe balanced the cake in one arm, Dr. Colosso's portable cage and all of the decorations in the other, and stood watch.

All of the street thugs and villains she had busted with Ms. Marvelous – they had even faced off against the Dark Dragon, Ms. Marvelous' arch-nemesis and the most famous supervillain in town - and yet she still found it exciting to play look-out for Max while he broke into their own little sister's dorm room to decorate it for her birthday. Phoebe had chosen the timing carefully – she knew Nora had class then. She had decided not to call Billy – he would have already told Nora before he even realized it was supposed to be a secret.

Down the hall person or persons unknown were bumping a frighteningly explicit and un-censored ballad detailing a couple's first time. "Damn those tits be fine," the artist sang, the line echoing through the residence hall. Max looked over at her, and she wanted to pretend like she hadn't been listening the song, but it was too loud for that – and it was catchy and she had been tapping her foot.

It only made it worse that she stopped tapping her foot when their eyes met.

She was lost in thought for a moment, but when she looked up she saw a pretty red-haired student turning the corner into their corridor. "Someone's coming!" she said urgently, but Max couldn't hear her over the music. "Someone. Coming. Now!" she then shouted.

Max shrugged and kept at the lock.

Shrieking, she ran over and tugged on his arm. It didn't occur to her until later that she might have used her powers to stop him instead "What are you doing? We'll get caught!"

"So? We're totally legit." He pointed to the balloons and the pet rabbit. "We hardly look like troublemakers. Campus security wouldn't even give us a second glance. Hey, actually, that's not a bad cover." He pulled out his cellphone and began typing in a memo. He paused in the act, as if he had thought better of the idea, but Phoebe didn't have time to wonder what was going on. She snaked her arm around his and pulled him up to stand beside her at the door as if they were waiting on someone to open it for them.

He instantly unhooked his arm and took a step to the side. "Maybe we should knock just in case?" he bellowed over the music.

"Oh. I didn't even think of that."

Max rapped on the door. They waited. Nothing happened.

They continued to stand there awkwardly, waiting for the pretty redhead to pass. She tossed her hair when she saw Max. Phoebe noticed her brother do a double take and his eyes followed her as she passed them and then rounded out of the corridor. Checking her out was a good excuse to watch her until she was gone but Phoebe knew that wasn't why Max had been staring. She felt a wave of irritability wash over her.

"Been thinkin' 'bout this for a long time, glad I finally grew a spine" the words of the song continued.

Max pushed her further away and then dropped down to his knees and continued to jingle with the lock. She regained her balance after a few wobbles, her mass holdings teetering.

"There," Max said proudly, as a mechanic clink they couldn't hear over the music signaled that the inner mechanism had turned and the door popped free. He kicked the heavy wooden door open further to reveal the prison-cell-sized room.

And all that was in it.

And all that was happening in it.

Phoebe had barely processed what she had seen before her ears were filled with shrieks. She lost control of her hands, and the rabbit and the cake went to the floor while the balloons floated up towards the ceiling.

"Oh, shit," Max murmured beside her, staring in.

Phoebe's screams joined the chorus of those inside. She stepped on the cake in her panic as she reached out, grabbed the door handle, and yanked it shut with her, Max, and all they had brought on the outside again.

"Oh my God," she whispered, wide-eyed and shell-shocked.

"Honestly, I'm not that surprised," Dr. Colosso said, munching on a carrot.

Yes, this had been a terrible idea.