Decryption
Universe T
Kid Win awoke with a deep breath, followed by a sputtering cough, trying to make sense of the situation. He registered sterile white walls, beeping medical equipment, and a white cloaked figure holding his hand. Focusing his bleary eyes, he made out Panacea's weary face, looking something between exasperated and relieved.
"Broken leg, broken arm, three broken ribs. A punctured lung too, along with lots of internal bleeding. Lots of other assorted minor damage I won't bother telling you about," she recited in a tired monotone. "And from how I hear it, you weren't even on an official patrol."
Kid Win felt the odd sensations of his insides shifting around slow to a stop and immediately got out the first thing on his mind, "Weaver? Where is she, is she alright?"
Panacea let go of his hand. "No 'Thank You' this time?" Before he could answer, she sighed and continued, "Sorry, it's alright. She's not in nearly as bad a way as you were so they had me heal you first. I should be done with her by the time the nurses have you out of those splints and back into your costume." Without even waiting for Kid Win's belated thanks, she turned and headed back out the door.
Checking the clock and noticing the lack of light coming in through the nearby window Kid Win surmised it was still the same night, but before he could do much else the nurses were pecking over him and disconnecting all the medical equipment.
A few minutes later, he was back into his bloodstained and dented but still essentially intact costume and about to burst out the door, but before he could get there Weaver was already opening it from the outside.
She paused there, uncertain. Her costume looked better than his, but its dark colors hid the stains a bit, and the spider silk fabric was better even than the low grade tinker cloth that made up regulation costumes. It felt odd to see her hesitate like this; she was normally so decisive.
Kid Win broke the ice, "Hey. I guess that didn't go very well, did it?"
She shook her head and walked to him, her exposed hair moving back and forth with the motion. "I'm sorry I screwed everything up. I -", she cut herself off with a pause. "We should've never left the church, broken cover. I just didn't want to fall back from the door and lose the ones we'd already caught. I put us in so much danger and it was so stupid, I-"
Kid Win cut her off this time, "No, you did great. You won the fight in the church, and we couldn't have known their reinforcements would get there before Aegis and Gallant could. It was an impossible situation." He moved closer to her and put his hand on her shoulder, but she froze at the contact, looking down at the ground.
Tattletale's words raced through his mind again. "Weaver…" He wasn't sure what to say, how to even broach the nasty subject.
"I understand. I was thinking about it while we were waiting for Panacea to wake up and get here. You probably don't want anything to do with me personally anymore, but I hope we can still be professional while working. I-, Kid Win, I really did enjoy tonight, but I know you must think that-"
"Stop." Kid Win took her masked chin gently under the mandibles and shifted her head to look at his. "Don't worry about it. We both know Tattletale is a massive bitch. The night was totally fun up until then, and you were great, and it's fine, about … why we're dating. I sort of suspected it from the start, to be honest, I know someone like you could do better and I really like you a lot, it's ok if you don't like me very much, so-"
"No!" Weaver almost shouted. "I do! It might have started like that, I saw a shiny piece of new gear and I couldn't help thinking, being greedy. But everything was so great. The date was wonderful. You were wonderful! You don't need to make me anything, I just don't want you to leave," she'd started loud, but by the end her voice was trailing off into a whisper. She sounded so afraid.
"I won't leave." Kid Win grabbed her into a hug, his forehead nestling into the crook of her neck.
They held the hug for a while, but soon Weaver broke off and turned to the door. Kid Win took the cue, stepping to the side in time to see Velocity enter the room.
"Well, that little adventure went all kinds of wonderful," Velocity said sarcastically. He was carrying a plastic bin and didn't appear to be injured.
Weaver's shoulders drooped in embarrassment again, but before she could say anything Velocity continued, "Oh don't get all depressed. It isn't like none of us have lost to the Undersiders before. The Director will ream you out a bit tomorrow, or later today I guess, and all will be right with the world. Look, I even got all your stuff back from the scene."
He dropped the bin on the hospital bed, and Kid Win noticed his hoverboard, his guns, and even Weaver's net were all inside. The gear was a bit worse for the wear but essentially unbroken, and Kid Win figured he could have it all in peak condition again before the weekend was over.
Kid Win was about to thank the elder hero, but Velocity interrupted again, "Sorry I couldn't be much help back there. Now I gotta run, it's already gotten late." With a blur, Velocity was gone before either of them had managed to get a word in edgewise.
After staring at the door for a second, Weaver looked at the clock and sighed. "It is late, my dad is going to freak if he stayed up." She looked back at Kid Win speculatively, "Give me a ride home? You can drop me off near my place and I'll sneak the rest of the way."
That sounded just fine to Kid Win. "Sure. Ah, do you think your dad will be mad at me for keeping you out too late?"
"I don't think he'll blame you," Weaver replied. "But don't mention what happened at the church next time you see him. I don't like worrying him with small stuff like that."
Kid Win wasn't sure that being beaten nearly to death by a giant dog in the middle of an arrest was small stuff, but he hadn't even told his mother he was going on a date, so he supposed he couldn't talk.
Universe S
Kid Win wasn't sure, but he suspected Shadow Stalker was hiding somewhere under the bleachers. Now that he thought about it, he wasn't even sure why there were bleachers in the gym; they were definitely standard fare for a lot of gyms he'd been in, but the PRT didn't exactly have a sports team. Maybe it was part of some training scheme from heroes long past.
There had been some people using the gym with them when their spar had first started, but somewhere along the way it had become the main attraction of the facility and people had slowly left the gym's environs for the observation deck to stay out of the way. Blunt arrows and training bolts still hurt, after all.
Aside from the bleachers Kid Win was staring at, the gym had a lot more cover than was usual. There was a bit of a climbing island, some clusters of stood up mats, and even concealed eaves up in the rafters, presumably to give some variety to contests like this. Kid Win and Shadow Stalker had spent a while sparring up near the ceiling, but the electrical wiring in the roof lights had been making her skittish and she'd opted to take the fight back to the low ground a few minutes ago.
They had sort of chased each other around the climbing island for a bit, but she'd managed to get away from him there and his prediction program was giving tepid signals as to her current location. Blunt arrows rolled around the abandoned battlefield like tumbleweeds, propelled by the strong fans that circulated air through the underground room.
He was scooting his hoverboard toward the bleachers warily, wondering how he was going to engage her in such cramped quarters, when he got a sudden sense of foreboding. Even as he started to spin, his visor screamed warnings, and he managed to get one gun up in time to snap off a shot just before a blunt arrow whacked him square in the face.
Shadow Stalker dephased to change her trajectory and dodged easily, sticking a landing on the ground that a gymnast would envy. "Gotcha!"
"You did", Kid Win replied flatly. He had really thought he could beat her today.
"Hey, three out of seven falls isn't bad is it? Maybe next time," Shadow Stalker gloated.
"Maybe next time," Kid Win agreed. "I'm beat, do you want to hit the showers?"
Shadow Stalker replied in a lower voice, "Slow down there tiger. Unless you want to flaunt to all of the PRT?" Kid Win wasn't sure if she was joking.
After he'd paused warily for a bit, she just laughed, and slapped him on the shoulder. "Did you think I was serious? Maybe we will sometime, it'd drive the Pig up the wall, and she couldn't throw me in juvie for that! But really, do you want to change and then get something to eat?"
Kid Win was on firmer ground here. "Sure, that'd be great." He hadn't interacted with Sophia much out of costume yet, and wasn't sure what to expect, but he figured it'd be fun to find out.
Even out of costume, moving through the streets with Sophia was an experience. She strutted with a confidence that could've been out of place for a girl of her small stature, but somehow she managed it in spite of that. While Brockton Bay was on its way to recovery, the streets had never been very safe, and the bus route they took north to the Boardwalk still left a lot of ground to cover on foot.
"So this pizza place of yours must be pretty good to be worth going this far," Chris said. Privately, he suspected something bigger was up, but wanted to let her manage whatever it was at her own speed.
"It is, actually. Just reopened." There was a pause in conversation as they crossed a street and she indicated a new direction. "It's not really on the Boardwalk; all the stuff here is overpriced and pretty lame. And mostly still destroyed, I guess. It's more of a Docks place."
Soon enough, they came to Anthony's Pizza Shop, and while the storefront showed signs of water damage, it wasn't as bad as it had been on the Boardwalk and the inside seemed clean and repaired. Upon entering, Sophia looked up at the chalk menu and shrugged at Chris, signaling him to pick whatever.
Chris generally went for a variety of toppings, but was in the mood for meat today. He ordered a Pepperoni and Sausage for them both and sat down with a couple drinks to wait. Sophia joined him in the booth, scooting in to his side of the table.
"So, you're buying?" She asked with a raised eyebrow.
"It's just a pizza. What else am I going to spend my stipend on with the city like this?" Chris answered.
"Way to make a girl feel appreciated." She was being sarcastic, but said it with a smile, and leaned into his side.
In a few minutes, they collected the pizza and mostly ate in companionable silence. While on her last slice, Sophia spoke up after glancing around, "So. There's this other thing I'd like to show you in the Boat Graveyard."
"That's cool. I don't really have to be home at any specific time." Chris' mother had been a little distant since he joined the Wards, and with the post Leviathan chaos she'd stopped tracking his movements much, assuming his workload might ramp up. It hurt him to think of how close they'd used to be sometimes, when he was younger, but it was useful now.
They left the restaurant and made their way further north toward the Boat Graveyard. Chris would feel a little leery about the neighborhood, but he knew that if it came down to it Sophia was an unbelievable unarmed fighter, and he was even carrying a gun in his backpack as a last resort.
He needn't have feared though; the area was abandoned, and even the gangsters seemed to be focusing on more profitable territories in the wake of Leviathan's attack. Sophia led him to an abandoned warehouse not too far from the waterfront and started looking at their surroundings carefully once they reached the door. After she was satisfied, she went into her shadow form and phased through to the other side. There was the rusty sound of creaking metal, and then the door popped open and she beckoned him inside.
Chris entered quickly and she shut the door behind him, forcefully turning the physical metal latch back into place. "This was my secret hideout, before the Protectorate conscripted me. It isn't much, but I have some reserve stuff here and a place to crash."
The ground floor of the warehouse hadn't done well in the flooding and was a moldy mess of destroyed wood and broken metal, but Sophia led him to some stairs that went to an upper level. "Most of this place I just used to practice, but the nice spot is up here." The little observation room was still in pretty good shape, complete with some out of place couches that Sophia must have dragged in long ago.
"This is kind of nice. I was pretty much in the Wards before I ever had anything like this. Did you ever bring anybody else here?" Chris thought two couches was a little much for one person, but he couldn't really imagine Sophia being very friendly with normal people either.
Sophia flinched a little. "Yeah. One person." She looked down, and continued, "She was my best friend, but she died in the Leviathan attack. She wasn't a cape, but she … understood." Chris had never seen Sophia cry in all the months he'd known her, but her face was wet.
Saying he was sorry just felt wrong. He just hugged her, and she broke into little sobs for a while, crying into his chest. After a minute or so, she put herself back together, apologizing, "Sorry. I didn't think I'd just fall apart there. It just, it didn't feel real until now, you know? I kept thinking that the text to my phone was from her, or that we could hang out after patrol, dumb things like that. We had some good times here, and bringing you just sort of made me realize that she's really gone."
She sat down on the couch, cleaning her face with her sleeve, and Chris sat down next to her. The whole Wards team had known Eric on New Wave, but he was more of an acquaintance than a friend really. Dauntless had been closer to home, technically, but he'd barely interacted with the Wards at all. More words didn't really seem right for right now anyway.
He gently kissed the top of her head, through her hair, and she responded needily, eagerly, pulling him down on top of her. She was different this time, gentle, quiet. It was really a surprisingly comfortable couch for something found on the street and dragged into an abandoned warehouse.
Neither of them was tired afterwards, this time, and they just lay together for a bit, Sophia pivoting under him and snuggling between him and the side of the couch. Briefly, he wondered if he was taking advantage of her, but he decided that even in this condition Sophia was well equipped to take care of herself if she needed to.
"I am sorry to interrupt, but I'm afraid my colleague has a busy schedule to keep. These double dates have a way of being a little awkward, don't they?" There was a man in the door. His open dress shirt and jeans seemed almost incongruous with the face of the world's most wanted villain. A woman's visage in black and white stripes could be seen inquisitively looking over his shoulder. Jack Slash, the Siberian, the Slaughterhouse Nine were really here.
Chris rolled from the couch to the ground, scrambling for the gun in his bag. As useless as he knew it would be, he would rather die fighting than be killed like a helpless animal. He grabbed blindly, too slow, and when he finally had it he turned to see Jack Slash and the Siberian, still standing calmly in the doorway. He could spot Sophia behind him out of the corner of his eye, and equally useless crossbow in her hand that she'd secreted out of somewhere.
A smile came to Jack's face. "Five out of ten for execution, but a solid eight for humor." He strode calmly into the room and took a seat on the arm of the abandoned couch. "But really, we're not here to fight right now. In fact, we have an exciting offer for you two lovebirds, available for a limited time only."
Universe T
The next day, as expected, Chris was fixing up his (and Taylor's) equipment. Most of it hadn't taken too much damage in the fight, but he needed to switch out some damaged panels on his body armor and the net had a couple frayed links that needed to be replaced.
Piggot hadn't actually been too hard on Weaver for her daring antics during the meeting. The primary focus had been on the multiple murders last night, and Weaver had gotten away with a PR event at Adams Elementary's opening next week as her only 'punishment'. Kid Win supposed the Director had as big a grudge against the Undersiders as Weaver did at this point, and she seemed more frustrated that half of them had narrowly escaped again than anything else.
Weaver had followed him back upstairs and was studying files on a computer in his lab; both were out of costume in the safety of the Wards' sanctum. "If the Nine really are here and Shatterbird sings, what are you going to do?" she asked. "She doesn't just break glass, the song supposedly bricks most electronics too."
"So you think the Nine are really here? You didn't seem very convinced by Tattletale last night," Chris said. "It's actually not much of a problem for me. Everything in my actual tech uses optical circuits, and my visor's a plastic compound instead of glass. My computer interface equipment would all be ruined, but the computers would be too so that doesn't matter very much, I guess."
"That's good. And I don't necessarily believe the Nine are here, but 'it's wise to be prepared for every eventuality'," Taylor managed to finish her comment deadpan, but afterwards they both broke into giggles at her quoting Armsmaster's maxim.
Chris got up from his workbench to look over her shoulder. As he expected, the internal Protectorate file for Shatterbird was displayed on the screen, and profiles on some of the rest of the Nine were visible hidden on other tabs. He spoke uneasily, "But really, doesn't this sort of have you spooked? I mean, Leviathan was here, but we had all sorts of other heroes here to drive him off. If the Nine are really here … it's all up to us."
Taylor kept scanning the document without turning her head, but she'd never been big on eye contact. She leaned back into her chair, closer to him, but it was anything but relaxed. She said, "Am I completely horrible for almost wishing that it's true? I feel so tied up by all the rules and regs and PR we have to follow sometimes."
"Like the bugs they don't let you take out? At least you're making a mint with that honeybee thing right?" Chris tried to lighten the mood a bit, and started stroking her hair to calm her down.
Her reply was still troubled, "It's not just the bugs I can't use, it's the ways I can't use the ones I have. If I could go for the eyes and other vulnerable spots, Tattletale's bug spray wouldn't have been a huge deal even with the swarm I had out on patrol. I thought I had the situation handled anyway, but things can escalate, and so easily. If I'd only been able to do it all quicker in the church we might've had more time to set up for Bitch and Regent."
"Armsmaster got your special spiders in too recently right?" Chris had still been sort of creeped out by Weaver's bugs when the spider news came in and hadn't paid much attention to the specifics. Strangely, they didn't seem to bother him anymore now, even as he felt them move around his fingers as he stroked her hair. Bugs were sort of like his girlfriend's own fingers, he supposed.
"The darwin's bark spiders are more for the stronger silk, I wouldn't take them out anyway. But I have my widows, and Armsmaster got an emergency supply of bullet ants and giant hornets shipped in for me too. We tried to get the bullet ants past review, but it's been tied up in the bureaucracy for a month now," Taylor answered, still frustrated.
Chris got back to the original topic, "You're just stressed out. You hate losing and you detest PR and it totally doesn't make you horrible. You're great."
Taylor didn't say anything, but let go of the mouse and impulsively spun her chair around to face him, pulling him down into a kiss. "You're great," she said. "I'm maybe ok, at best." A rare smile crossed her face. "Nobody's around, you know," she whispered.
Chris was pleasantly surprised, but also a little shocked. "But, I mean, cameras!" He lowered his voice after that, "They keep all the Ward Tinker labs under surveillance in case of accidents."
"Yes, there are two and another outside that gets a bit of the doorway. This corner is in a blind spot," Taylor explained mischievously. "Just don't make too much noise." She kissed him again, settling him onto her lap.
The kiss broke, and Chris said dazedly, "Oh, well, that's good then."