November (1)

The report from the police department was in his inbox the next morning, as he'd thought it would be. Incidents involving parahumans had to be reported to the PRT, something that the regular law enforcement didn't seem to approve of. Jurisdictional disputes, for the most part, though on cases like this Armsmaster could understand some of the grumbles about privacy violations. It probably hadn't even occurred to Yu to ask for a mask, or to request a pseudonym.

Armsmaster opened the report up to editing, fiddled a bit with the timestamps for such, and then carefully combed over the document and removed every instance of Yu's name. The police would still have his statement and all that, but the PRT would be getting yet another addition to the box of 'unidentified parahuman, name withheld' reports. One of the last things Armsmaster needed was the PRT knocking on his own door, trying to pitch the Wards program when one, Yu was a foreign national and unless there were some curiously specific clauses he was unaware of, not eligible anyway; and two, that sort of decision needed Yu's parents involved, not Armsmaster. Best to just avoid the whole tangled mess from the start, if at all possible.

* * *

For Yu, life proceeded much as it had been, with the exception of Mr Wallis being open to conversation in a limited quantity. He didn't want to speak while he was working, but he didn't object to Yu grabbing his attention before he could set up his computer. Yu felt like he was starting to get an idea of how to navigate Mr Wallis, though not as quickly as he'd like. The older man dismissed or ignored general statements or sentiments ("How was your day?") but would respond to more direct inquiries ("Are you working on the same project tonight as yesterday?"). He was also, once Yu got a feel for the unstated rules that governed Mr Wallis' idea of being helpful, surprisingly accommodating. He had less than zero interest in helping Yu with his studies, because that was something Yu was meant to handle by himself; but if there was something Yu could not be expected to understand or be able to deal with, then as soon as it was brought up Mr Wallis would make it a priority to rectify the issue.

That was the catch, though— Yu had to bring it up first. Mr Wallis seemed to have trouble anticipating needs, rather than reacting to them. The exception to this rough guideline was the first, inevitable conversation on what Mr Wallis expected from him in regards to Yu having powers. Namely, don't go looking for trouble. If trouble went looking for Yu, that was another story, but Mr Wallis' advice was to disengage and avoid conflict if at all possible.

"You can't overestimate yourself," he warned Yu, "and I know that's easy to say, but it happens all the time. New capes in general, but Brutes in particular—ah, that's parahumans who are tougher, or heal fast, or physically stronger, that sort of thing—they rush in because they haven't found their limits yet, so they assume there isn't one. You should always try to take the smarter option, alright?"

"I understand, Mr Wallis."

"Good," he grunted, in the middle of setting up his laptop. "What even happened, anyway?"

Yu was still a little embarrassed about losing his temper like that, but the man had asked, so he recounted the confrontation. Mr Wallis turned away from him at the end of it and was quiet for a long moment. Yu felt guilt start to grow heavy in his chest. "...did you really?"

"Yes, I did as I said I would-" And the guilt evaporated in an instant as Yu caught the slight upward tick of his guardian's mouth, near-hidden by the goatee. Was— was he trying not to laugh?

Mr Wallis turned even further away for a moment, trying to compose himself, before just as suddenly turning back to face Yu with a serious tone and expression. "I do not approve of that course of action," he lied, and left Yu wondering if this was some quirk specific to Mr Wallis, or if he'd stumbled across a recognized pass-time of this city. Maybe it was both.

...he was going to send mail to Naoto, and ask her to thank Kanji for being such a good role model. He was sure Yukiko would make sure they both survived the aftermath.

* * *

Not counting the usual scuffles, it was a quiet week for Armsmaster. Lung hadn't burned anything down recently, which was always something to be thankful for, and no follow-up on the incident with Yu had reached him, so Armsmaster felt it was fine to relax on that front, a bit. The teenager seemed willing to actually follow his advice, instead of taking the usual young parahuman route and assemble a slapdash costume to go sneaking about at night in. It was a pretty gratifying change, and while he should talk to Yu about his future eventually, the fact that Yu was being relatively sensible meant he wasn't a priority right now.

All of which was more than Armsmaster could say of his professional obligations to parahuman teenagers, unfortunately. The newest member of the Wards, a low-level Breaker named Shadow Stalker, had recently been cleared for public introduction and added to the team. Her power had some interesting applications, but first impressions from her new teammates had almost universally summarized her as 'abrasive.' That meant Armsmaster was going to be revising the patrol schedules on a regular basis, to get Shadow Stalker and the rest of the Wards used to each other, and to find the most and least synergistic team compositions. A minor irritation, in terms of his own time spent, but a necessary one, so he couldn't begrudge it too much.

He entered the Wards' Commons to deliver the latest revised schedule in time to hear a tortured moan from the direction of the couch. A quick investigation found Kid Win slumped over the coffee table with his head in his hands, with Vista patting him ineffectually on the shoulder. Armsmaster didn't see any injuries, so at least it wasn't an emergency, whatever it was. "What's wrong?"

"There is no God," Kid Win muttered. Vista sighed at his melodramatics.

"Kid took apart his new game system on accident. His life is over."

Aha. Armsmaster grimaced a bit, feeling a pang of sympathy. Tinkers can't have nice things— or at least, not for very long. They tended to disassemble and repurpose anything they could get their hands on, especially when they were first starting out. Not to say that experienced Tinkers didn't also cannibalize nearby technology when inspiration hit, but learning to manage those impulses was among the growing pains of being a Tinker. God only knew how many movie players, televisions, and radios Armsmaster had gone through over the years, and that wasn't counting other, less-quickly-replaced appliances.

"Unfortunate, but it is a learning experience. You'll just have to do better next time." Kid Win just made a miserable sound. Hopefully he'd take what comfort he could from the lesson, once he calmed down. Except then, Vista actually shot him a half-hearted glare and a frown.

"Jeeze, he gets it already, you don't have to make fun of him." What? He wasn't. That was not what he was doing.

"It's not a laughing matter, Vista," Armsmaster clarified, "and it's not an enjoyable lesson. But it's a necessary one." If Kid Win wanted to sulk for a bit, then that was his choice to waste time, and Armsmaster was not getting into an argument about any of this, especially not with a pair of teenagers. He walked away from the two kids on the couch, and ignored the irritated huff from Vista as he finished his original goal of pinning the new schedule to the corkboard on the far wall. There, errand complete. He could move on with his day, now.

Or he would have, if 30 minutes later Miss Militia hadn't walked into his office with a very familiar look on her face. Dammit. How did she just know?

* * *

He was still simmering about it hours later, as he pulled into his driveway. Once inside the house, he found Yu still awake, sitting at the kitchen table with a bunch of cards spread in front of him. He'd been doing that often, lately; not just playing with cards, but staying up late to greet Colin when he got home from work. He wasn't sure if that was odd behavior for a teenager. Or, well— staying up late was pretty normal, especially on weekends. But given that adolescents almost universally loved to sleep in, Colin wondered a bit if this habit was impacting Yu's school performance.

"Hello, Mr Wallis. Welcome back."

"Evening," he returned, then considered. He supposed he could just ask directly. "How's school going?"

Yu glanced up at him and smiled, apparently pleased with the question. "I think it is going well. I do not have much trouble with the material, though the literature classes I have to take slowly. I look forward to the mid-semester exams."

"Good to hear it."

"What about you, Mr Wallis?" Yu tilted his head a bit, and frowned. "You seem troubled. Was there a problem at work?"

Colin's first instinct was to balk—Yu didn't really need to know anything about his 'job'—but honest questions deserved honest answers. As long as he left out details, it should be fine. "I wouldn't call it a problem, exactly. A… junior in my department made a mistake, is all."

"I see. Did he need to be reprimanded?"

Colin shook his head, even as he was irked by the reminder. "No, nothing like that. It was a rookie mistake, happens all the time. The sooner he learns to avoid it, the better."

Yu made a thoughtful noise, and elected to follow him into the hallway-slash-living room, where his desk was set up against a wall. Yu leaned against the kitchen doorframe and watched Colin start to unpack his laptop for the night. "If it is a common mistake in your field, then I am sure your junior member must benefit from your experience."

Colin paused for a moment to try and untangle that sentence. "That's not really—no, not exactly. It's— this kind of thing is so common, that he needs to learn how to deal with it without my help. Otherwise, he won't learn how to avoid similar types of mistakes further down the line."

"Oh." Yu paused for a moment, then said, "So no one helped you with this error, when you were starting?"

Was he being snide? He didn't sound like it. "That's right. I learned through observation, and trial-and-error." True, he'd studied under Hero a bit, when the man was still alive, but he'd been the exception to everything about Tinkers. If Hero had ever had trouble with idly dismantling anything expendable, he'd never heard about it. Besides, by then Colin had already learned the basics of What Not To Do in terms of leaving stray electronics within reach, and everything beyond that was a lifetime of adjusting and adding on new techniques.

"But… it would be helpful to your new employee to know, right?"

"That's not the point." Handing Kid Win the answers wouldn't help him, any more than Miss Militia's laser focus on 'team morale' would. Self-motivation was one of the most important parts of successful Tinkering. You couldn't just rely on the people around you to prop you up, they were

(unnecessary)

not going to be around all the time. Learning to do things by yourself was essential. Why was that so hard for people to understand?

Ugh. He kind of regretted this whole conversation. He'd spent enough energy fretting about this earlier, bringing it back up again after a long day was starting to make his head hurt.

"Perhaps, but… you did not invent algebra, Mr Wallis." ...huh?

"What does that have to do with… anything?" Colin turned away from his still-dark screen to look over at Yu, confusion writ all over his face. Yu kept a serious expression on his own, without condemnation.

"You learned mathematics from a book in school. The numbers and equations were given to you, and then your teacher asked you to prove you could use them, correct? If everyone had to start with nothing, if they had to invent algebra, then we as a society would not see much progress. Perhaps this 'rookie mistake' follows a similar principle."

The words gave Colin pause, and he stopped to lean back in his chair to think it over. Yu, thankfully, stayed quiet and let him turn the metaphor over in his head for a bit, feeling the shape of it. Scaffolding—learning something, and then taking what you learn from that to learn something else, and so on— was the most basic level of the Tinker Cycle. As it should be, considering it was the basic principle behind any education. He was concerned that letting Kid Win skip bits of that foundation would only sabotage his Tinkering later on— but, if Yu's comparison was sound, then learning to implement skills could take the place of finding those skills, without weakening the end result.

And maybe it would give the Ward some direction for once. Watching Kid Win flutter from one project to the next without ever finishing was almost physically painful.

"It's a fair point," he finally said, and glanced back over at Yu, still waiting patiently in the doorframe. "Thank you."

* * *

Yu brought his packed lunch to the cafeteria the next day, and eyed the different tables as he walked. Where did he still need to introduce himself? He'd been by the Band table earlier this week, to little fanfare, and looking around he thought he could identify an Athlete table, an Artist table, and a table of mostly girls clustered around a popular blonde with a sunny smile. There was always the Cape Geek table, but—

"But I'm saying, it's weird, right?"

"I'll say. Do you really have to do all this, just to keep from taking apart your alarm clock?"

"I don't know—I mean, it kinda makes sense when I think about it—but that's not what I mean."

—buuuuut it looked like Chris and Dennis were huddled together over a laptop, engrossed in some mystery. Yu casually shuffled a bit closer, any guilt over eavesdropping easily swept aside by intrigue. Neither looked up, his footsteps drowned out by the cafeteria's noise. Chris pawed at the laptop's scroll pad and pointed at the screen.

"I mean, this. This part right here."

"...did he give you homework? What the hell!"

"Right?!"

Well now. That was interesting, and as he'd previously decided: Yu did not believe in mere coincidence.