Many thanks to Assembler, themanwhowas, frustratedFreeboota, skyrunner, BeaconHill, and ShadowStepper1300 on QuestionableQuesting for betareading.

Many thanks to MugaSofer for fact checking.

Blaze 7.1

The black helmet turned to face me as I entered the interview room. The deep pits of eye sockets in the stylized skull of a mask seemed to fix me with their gaze.

I closed the door behind me, shutting out the faint sounds of working PRT troopers, and stepped forward. I slipped into the chair across from Grue and folded my hands together.

Neither of us spoke for a time.

"Didn't expect you to be here," he admitted finally. "Thought it'd be Miss Militia, or a PRT officer."

"I'm here at Miss Militia's request," I said. "The PRT is understaffed at the moment. I'm sure you understand."

"Yeah. Endbringers will do that."

Silence fell again.

"You gonna say anything?" he finally asked.

"I'm trying to decide on my approach." I sighed. "All right. I won't ask you to reveal your face, even though it would make this easier."

"Yeah, I'll bet."

"You misunderstand. We have your identity. I don't need leverage, I need rapport. Without being able to see your face, it'll be a little harder. But I can manage."

"Glad to see you think I'll be that easy to manipulate."

I shook my head. "You're coming at this the wrong way, Grue. You came to us. This doesn't have to be a conflict."

Grue laughed hollowly. "I came back because I have nowhere else to go, and I'd rather not turn up dead in a ditch in a few weeks."

"But you came," I said. "And I think we can work together, if you'll allow it."

He didn't answer.

"So tell me, Grue." I leaned forward, resting my weight on my elbows. "What do you want? Tell me your plan, going forward."

"I don't have a plan," he said, and I heard his gritted teeth in every sound. "If I did, I sure as hell wouldn't be here."

I shook my head, sighing. "No, that's not what I mean. Grue, you must have had a reason to be a supervillain. Everyone does. Tell me how I can help you fulfill it, and I'll tell you how you can help me in return."

He was perfectly still. "A trade?"

I nodded. "If I can give you what you want, and you're willing to give me what I need, then yes. A trade. But we can't trade until we've talked."

Silence fell again. He was indecisive. I saw it in the drumming of his fingers on his pant leg.

"I knew I shouldn't have let Miss Militia send me in here without seeing your file," I said ruefully. "I'd probably be able to guess what it was, if I knew who you were. Look, you can talk to me now, or I can go, get permission to see your file, and we can have this talk again—only next time, I'll be holding all the cards."

"Fine." He sounded angry, but beneath that lay resignation. "You go first. What do you want from me?"

"I want allies," I said. "I want people who will help me protect this city and its people."

"You want me to join the Wards."

I blinked. "Wards? You're not eighteen?"

"Seventeen, for a bit longer."

"Mm. You hold yourself like an adult. My mistake."

"It's fine," he said, clearly on a reflex. "I'm not a hero. Not exactly hero material."

"Nor was Shadow Stalker," I said.

He chuckled at that, as if in amusement at a private joke. "You don't say? You know she shot me, right?"

I grimaced. "I'm not surprised. Shadow Stalker had—has —a pretty big chip on her shoulder. We're working on it."

"What are you, her therapist?"

"In a sense," I allowed. "I gave her a chance when she deserved none. And now I'm making sure she doesn't waste it."

"And you see yourself being that for me, too."

I shook my head. "Believe me, you're much more well-adjusted than she was when I first joined the Wards. No, Grue, all I want to do here is find a way for being a hero to give you what you want."

There was silence. I allowed it to stretch. He was thinking, and interrupting would only make him recoil.

At long last, he spoke. "Fine." He reached up, and took off the motorcycle helmet.

A dark-skinned face looked back at me. His black hair was done into tight cornrows, and his features were hard and masculine. And yet, in his eyes, I saw veiled fear, insecurity.

This was a man who hid behind his masculinity. I mentally adjusted my approach as I reached up myself.

Off came my own helmet, and I set it down on the table beside me. "Taylor Hebert," I said, holding out a hand.

He shook. "Brian Laborn."

"So," I said, folding my hands again. "Brian. Tell me what you want."

He considered me for a moment. "It's my sister," he said at last. "It's—" he shook his head. "I don't know how to start."

"At the beginning," I suggested. "Continue until the end. Then stop."

He smiled slightly. "Fine. My parents split up years ago. My dad tries, but he's—he's just not cut out for parenthood. Doesn't know how. Bonding with him meant sparring until I had a black eye—and he has no idea what to do with my little sister."

He hesitated a moment, in case I wanted to interrupt. I didn't, so he continued.

"My mother," he continued, and I could hear the faint, venomous undercurrent, "is worse. Drugs, alcoholism… everything short of open prostitution." His face twisted. "My sister's with my dad, but I want better for her."

I was beginning to understand, but a few key details still didn't add up.

"I became a supervillain so I could live on my own, at first," he said. "Then, after that, I started thinking about asking Aisha to move in with me. Thing is, I'd need to be able to demonstrate a stable job, and get my parents' support. My dad agreed, but my mom…" He trailed off.

"How did being a supervillain help you there, though?" I asked. "I doubt it would count for much in court."

His lips twitched into a small grin. "Tattletale's boss helped there," he said. "Never found out who he was, but he funneled money to us in exchange for us doing the jobs he wanted. In my case, he did it through a phony job that I could use in court. As soon as I turned eighteen, I was going to petition for custody of my sister."

I nodded slowly. "I understand."

"So when I was captured and unmasked," Grue said, "I knew it was over. Even if I escaped, and the PRT didn't release my identity publicly, I would still never be allowed custody over my sister. That's why I came back—figured my best option was to take my jail time, and then take my chances when I got out again. I haven't killed anyone, I'm still a minor, and I hoped helping with the Endbringer would give me a reduced sentence."

"Well, you were right," I said. "You will get a reduced sentence."

His eyes narrowed. "You and I mean different things when we say that."

I smiled. "I think we can help each other," I said. "I think we can get you a stable job, and help you get custody of your sister when you turn eighteen. And I think you can help us keep this city standing, in the next few months."

His eyes narrowed. "You really think the PRT will go along with this?"

"We'll have to see if I can convince them," I said, standing up and reaching for my helmet. "But you have my word that I'll try."

His lips twisted. "Wish I could say that was worth something."

I smiled. "It will be."

It was a familiar scene. I stood, hands clasped behind the small of my back, across from Director Piggot. Her desk was between us. She had dark circles under her eyes—marks of the ongoing stress of dealing with the aftermath of Leviathan's passage. Nonetheless, her eyes were as hard and bright as ever as they met mine.

"I doubt I can condone launching an investigation into a private household on the word of a captured supervillain," she said, but despite her words, her tone was absent of any derision.

"I know," I said. "That's why I propose a more moderate approach. Let's allow him to do exactly what he was originally planning."

"Acquire guardianship through the usual channels? He might have trouble finding the time to care for a child as a hero."

I nodded. "If we actually encourage him to take his vacation days, rather than working all the time, he should be able to manage. His income as a Protectorate hero, once he turns eighteen, will be more than enough to support him and his sister. And since he'll be a Protectorate hero, we can protect his identity in the courts, which gives us a little more leverage over his mother."

"Callous of you."

I smiled thinly. "Ma'am, I have an instinct for these things. Grue was telling me the truth, and I have very little sympathy for his mother on this one."

She nodded slowly. "I can understand that." She broke eye contact, and looked down at the computer monitor on her desk. "Give me a bit to think about it. It's not a bad idea."

"Thank you, Ma'am." I turned to go as she started typing.

"Hold on a moment."

I stopped and turned back. "Director?"

She finished whatever she was doing on her computer and looked back up at me. "We never caught up on that mess with Bakuda," she said. "Never had a chance."

I straightened slightly and nodded. "Of course."

"Miss Militia has expressed her concerns about your conduct. I believe she's talked about it with you, too?"

I nodded. "Yes, Ma'am."

"Good." She chewed her tongue for a moment, as though contemplating how to proceed. "Now, the PRT unofficially approved your actions with the Chief Director's back-dated kill order. As such, I won't be punishing you. That being said, I still want to talk about what happened. Just so we're on the same page."

So I talked. I told her about the timestop bomb, about the apparent loss of the other Wards. I told her about Sophia's warning, and about going out with Belthronding and Aeglos to stop Bakuda before she could do any more damage. I told her about how I'd disabled her bike with one well-placed arrow, and how, after the explosion of her EMP bomb, I'd disabled the tinker's deadman's switch and driven Aeglos into her chest.

"So you can confirm that Bakuda was not a hazard by the time you killed her?"

"No more than any other parahuman prisoner."

Piggot gave a faint, wolfish grin. "Good answer. No such thing as a safe parahuman. Any reason you couldn't have kept her permanently Mastered?"

I shrugged. "I might have managed it, but there's always a chance that, through an effort of will, someone might cast off Vilya's effect. With someone as potentially dangerous as Bakuda, I don't think that would have been a good risk to take."

Piggot nodded. "We couldn't have used her if she was permanently mastered anyway," she said. Her smiled widened into a bitter, sardonic thing. "We're the good guys, after all."

"Ma'am?"

She blinked, and seemed to come out of some reverie. "Sorry," she said. "Back to the topic. Why did you kill her? No excuses—just tell me why."

"I was avenging my friends."

She considered me for a moment, and then nodded once. "Nice to see you really are human under all the glitter," she said, and there was something odd in her voice.

"Excuse me?"

She ignored the question. "I respect what you did. If the PRT hadn't sanctioned it, I would have defended you from the worst of the punishment, if I could. I want you to know that."

I stared at her. "Really? Why?"

She gave a quiet, dry laugh—little more than a sigh. "Because I get it." She looked back down at her monitor. "I need to clear things with the Chief Director, but I'll probably hear back by the end of the day, tomorrow at the latest. Once I have, we'll open proper negotiations with Grue."

"So you'll…?"

"I think we can use Grue, same as you," she said. "Right and wrong don't enter into it as much as someone like Miss Militia would like. It's the same logic that made me offer Shadow Stalker a probationary position in the Wards, almost a year ago. It's what made me let you go in, when you first joined, and talk to her rather than kicking her out—even though I knew you might just try to master her. It was a risk worth taking."

"We can use heroes," I said.

She openly smiled—a crooked, slightly sour thing, cynical and old. "Exactly."

Please consider donating to my Pat reon, available at /lithosmaitreya . Many thanks to those who have already donated.