Another long wait! Even I was frustrated with myself for this one. But stuff happens! Thank you to DemonFoxBK201 for the idea!

"This is crazy," Mal muttered, shaking her head. "We can't do this."

"Why not?" Evie had a sparkle in her eye that made Mal rather wary. "We're different from the rest of the kids here, Mal. Better. About time they knew it."

"What's my mom going to say?" hissed the other girl.

"You think she'll care?" Evie bit her lip at Mal's crestfallen expression. "Sorry. I just meant that I don't think she'll say anything."

"Who knows." Mal looked up at the hand-painted sign on the shop in front of them. 'Curl Up and Dye'. "Maybe she will care, for once."

The two girls entered to see a single woman sweeping up a mess of hair, only peripherally watching a baby that was crawling around on the floor. The salon was otherwise empty. Upon their entrance, the baby stared at them for a few seconds before seeking the familiar presence of her mother. Drizella, stylist and mother, picked up her daughter and came to the register. "What do you girls want?"

"We're getting our hair dyed," Evie informed her with barely contained excitement.

Drizella raised an eyebrow. "Full head?" They nodded. "Well, your hair is already nice and light," she told Mal before turning to Evie, "but you're going to need some bleaching. So it's $25 for Mal and $40 for you."

Mal narrowed her eyes the way her mother would when she wanted to be even more intimidating. "Don't be stupid, Drizella." She glanced over at the baby girl, who was sucking on her thumb without a care in the world. "What's her name?"

The stylist tightened her hold on her daughter, a flash of fear crossing her face. "Dizzy."

"Dizzy," Mal cooed, getting the girl's attention. "Tell your mother not to be stupid."

"Bah!" exclaimed the baby.

Drizella swallowed. "I can bring it down to..."

"$20 each?"

"Yeah, $20 each."

As Drizella left to put the baby down and get the color, Evie whispered, "Did you just threaten a baby?"

"I wasn't actually going to hurt her," Mal defended. "...But Drizella doesn't know that."

"The power is going to your head." Mal shoved her friend, who laughed. "Relax. It's probably a good thing. You've got to be just like your mother eventually, right? Take over the family business?"

"Exactly." She sat down in one of the chairs like it was a throne. "And when I'm in charge, we're going to live like queens, Evie. We'll buy whatever we can't take and no one's going to tell us that we don't deserve it."

The next day at school, innumerable heads turned to see the new purple- and blue-haired best friends. All the attention was on them. For the first time in her life, Evie told Mal, she actually felt like royalty.

"Seriously?"

Ben had shown up in a royal blue sweater with the words AURADON UNIVERSITY emblazoned on the front in college-style print. He grinned. "It's actually mine, from when I went there for undergrad. I didn't buy it just for this."

"I'd hope not. My tax dollars should go towards a better wardrobe."

Surprised, Ben asked, "You pay taxes?"

She paused. "Enough chit-chat. Let's just pick up the bags and get out of here."

Ben had ventured into Mal's territory, the Isle itself, as part of his initiation. He was here to pick up approximately three hundred dollars worth of marijuana - not a terrible loss if he turned out to be a crappy dealer, but certainly enough to sign his death warrant if he ran off with it. Naturally none of this was going to the AU campus - it would be stored in an evidence locker at ACIA HQ. But no one else needed to know that.

He seemed rather impressed by the storage facility. And it was well-deserved - Maleficent was nothing if not efficient. Shelves of heavy, locked boxes lined the walls, each one labeled as though they were books sorted by the Dewey Decimal System. Only Maleficent's inner circle knew what all the codes meant, and subordinates could easily find the box meant for them by the number and key they'd been given.

"Why are those refrigerated?" Ben whispered to her, pointing to a set of industrial sized fridges in a corner. There were other people in the large warehouse, but it was rather silent and he didn't want to draw too much attention to himself.

"Black market insulin," Mal explained. "Really profitable nowadays."

"I bet it is."

They came to their shelf, number 23, but unfortunately someone was waiting for them.

Mal groaned. "What are you doing here?"

Harry Hook leaned against the shelf, crossing his arms. "Askin' the right questions, it seems. I looked into yer pretty little lad - " He jutted his chin at Ben but otherwise refused to acknowledge him. " - An' no one I know at AU has ever heard of him. Plus, what's a spoiled brat from the north side doin' down here, when he could get the same deal from some other kiddo already sellin' on campus? What's he need this whole operation for? Ever asked him?" He shook his head. "He smells, Mal."

"I'd like you to refrain from smelling me in the future, please," Ben requested politely. Mal snickered.

Harry did not find this as funny, and glared coldly at Ben for the first time. "Bullshit. Yer story smells like bullshit, laddie." He straightened and puffed out his chest, readying himself to get in Ben's face. "An' ye ain't got all of us buyin' it."

Mal came between them, though Ben didn't look particularly scared. "Are you calling me stupid, Harry?"

That took him aback a little. "What?"

"It sounds like you're calling me stupid," she continued casually. "Like you think this guy, a borderline alcoholic who's been partying for six years and has lived off mommy and daddy's money his whole life - like you think this guy could outsmart me."

"That's no what I'm sayin', love - "

"That's what it sounds like to me." Her voice had turned to ice. "I get that you're jealous. I don't care. Be as obnoxious as you want. But when you start interfering with my projects and threaten the money I need to bring in, we have a problem." She narrowed her eyes. "Understand?"

"But he could be - "

Mal grabbed him by the collar and roughly pushed him up against the wall. "Call me stupid one more time, Harry." He gaped at her, but said nothing. Shoving him towards the door they had entered through, she ordered, "Get out of here before I break another one of your fingers."

Huffing, Harry shot one last disdainful look at Ben before leaving.

"Thanks." Ben watched him go intently. "Another one of his fingers?"

"He told me he was stronger than me once when we were teens. He probably is, but he's shit at fighting." They couldn't talk about what they really needed to talk about. Not here.

But Mal couldn't wait until they were back at HQ. From the moment Harry had said anything, her heart had been pounding. He knows. He knows everything, Evie screamed. And he's going to take it straight to your mother. You're finished.

As they were walking out of the Isle (she'd advised Ben not to bring a car unless he felt like donating all four of the tires) Mal pulled him into a tiny alleyway and scanned their surroundings to make sure no one was listening. "What are we going to do?" she whispered furiously.

From the street, they heard the laughter and shouts of children exiting a departing school bus. There was only one bus stop for the Isle, right on the fringe of the borough. Bus drivers refused to stop any further inside. As a result, the first of about twenty kids started to pass the alley that Ben and Mal had hidden in, some of them pointing, giggling, and making kissy faces.

Ben closed the space between the two of them, resting his hands on her shoulders before starting to run his fingers up and down the back of her arms. Mal knew why he was doing this - they looked for all the world like two lovers having an intimate conversation and not like a federal agent and his CI plotting the downfall of Auradon's most notorious criminal, in case the kids tried to listen in or said anything to their parents. It was part of their cover story after all. Still, his actions had taken her by surprise, which was the only explanation for the further quickening of her heartbeat. His cheek brushed against hers as he whispered, "How much does your mother value Harry's opinion?"

The caress on her skin felt so nice. Mal couldn't remember the last time someone had touched her like that. "Not very." Her voice was practically soundless, so she cleared her throat and tried again. "Not at all." His hands stopped moving for a second when her breath reached his neck.

"Jesus, how many of them are there?" They both looked to where the alley opened onto the street. A few straggling kids were taking their sweet time walking by, showing their friends something from their backpacks or playing games on outdated cell phones. Ben turned back to her, biting his lip in a way that made it difficult for Mal to look anywhere else. "We'll just have to keep an eye on him, then. That's all we can do."

As the last of the schoolchildren's chatter died down, Ben moved back to give her space and Mal felt like she could breathe again. Not that she couldn't breathe before, but there had been a very enticing cologne that insisted on going straight to her head. No wonder Harry had been smelling him.

"Sorry," Ben said, not quite catching her eye. "I just didn't want - "

"I know. I get it."

There was a slightly awkward silence between them that might have gone on longer, if they hadn't heard the scream. A scream that sounded a lot like a terrified young girl.

In the millisecond that it had taken to exchange looks of alarm, both Ben and Mal had already started sprinting towards the sound, following the path of the kids. The screams became muffled, but by that point the two of them were close enough that they could still hear. They came to a screeching halt in front of another dingy alley, just in time to see an older man rip the clothes of a young girl. Dizzy.

Before they were noticed, Ben had the man in a choke hold. Mal grabbed Dizzy, who was crying and bleeding from her mouth. "Run," she commanded. Dizzy wasted no time and fled. Then Mal turned to the predator in Ben's grip.

The man was struggling and kicking his feet, clawing at Ben's arm. Still, Ben held on with a vice-like grip. "Call the police," instructed Ben.

Mal would have laughed, had the situation been less horrific. "There are no police." Her dagger came out, flashing for a moment in the dim light before Mal drove it in between the man's ribs.

"Mal!" Ben cried, though it was drowned out by the scum's screams. He let go, presumably to deliver first aid, but that was exactly what Mal wanted. The rapist fell to the ground and Mal on top of him, punching again and again, every blow landing on his face. "Mal, STOP!"

Ben pulled Mal back, but the man was already unconscious. Almost dead. But almost wasn't good enough. "Let go of me!"

"No, Mal, we're going to take him to a police station!"

She yanked herself out of his arms, but he was ready for that and tackled her to the ground. Mal rolled out from under him, only to find herself in a hold following the capture of a free wrist she hadn't been paying attention to. In that moment she realized two things: one, that Ben was much better trained than she was, and two, that he was actively trying not to hit her.

So she went on the offensive, kneeing him in the stomach. In what was probably a smart move, it seemed he had expected that too and wasn't quite as breathless and agonized as he should have been. It did get him to release her wrist, though, and her bloodied knuckles went flying towards him. He dodged as well as he could while they tussled on the ground, but his decision to stay on the defensive had put him at a distinct disadvantage. Mal straddled his torso so she could use the full weight of her body in her assault, but even then Ben blocked her punches. "Mal, please! I don't want to hurt you!"

"I know," she growled, "So stay out of my way!"

"I can't let you do this!"

She did get one glancing blow off his chin, but at the cost of opening herself up to being thrown aside. Her head hit the cement and she yelped in pain. Ben pulled her up by the arm and pressed her to the wall so firmly that she couldn't move. "Are you okay?" he panted. She didn't answer. Her breath was coming out in short bursts too, but more importantly, she had nothing to say to him. "I understand, Mal. I do. But that's not how we do things. We have to operate within the law."

Dizzy's attacker had regained consciousness and was trying to crawl away. Mal knew she only had one shot. She looked up at Ben with wide eyes, and forced all of her muscles to relax. Ben did, too, letting her slump to the ground. He was always so gentle with her. He might not have been, had he known she had a second pocketknife in her shoe.

The knife was flying through the air before he knew what had happened, and embedded itself in the escaping attacker's neck. "NO!" Ben's shout didn't matter. The amount of blood spurting from the wound could only mean she'd severed something important, and this man would exsanguinate long before help arrived.

It was only then that Mal took stock of her injuries. She really didn't have any, aside from the pain in her head where she had hit the sidewalk and the skin that had split over her knuckles. Ben looked much worse for the wear - a bruise was forming on his chin, she had scratched him in a few places while trying to free herself, and perhaps worst of all, despair seemed to emanate from him. He shuffled over to what was now a corpse, uselessly taking a pulse that wouldn't be there. Then he flopped onto the ground and buried his face in his hands.

Instead of satisfaction, the scene gave Mal a vague feeling of discomfort. "He deserved it," she declared, despite owing Ben no explanation.

He uncovered his face, but didn't look at her. "We don't get to decide that. He should've been arrested. Put on trial. Punished by the law."

"Arrested?! You think that would solve anything? He gets off with a slap on the wrist when someone posts bail for him, and you can be damn sure the police aren't coming back here to find him - so then what? He goes and molests more little girls? Your precious law doesn't give a shit about the Isle kids! It never has!"

"That was before, Mal!" He stood up. "I wasn't - I couldn't be here before! I'm sorry." His voice was raised too, but then he realized it would attract people who might hear something they shouldn't. "But I'm here now. I'm trying. I'm trying, Mal."

She shook her head. "You're just one person. You can't change anything."

They were quiet for a moment. The blood pool had stopped expanding underneath the man's body. His glassy eyes had never closed. Ben sighed. "I'll figure out what to do about this. You should go."

"You're the one who should go. This is an Isle problem. I'll deal with it." She lightly kicked at the dead man, and Ben grimaced. "You can't be here by yourself. Anyone with half a brain knows you're not from around here, and if a bunch of suits show up people are going to notice."

"The body has to go to - "

"What part of 'we're outside the law now' don't you understand?" Mal snapped in frustration. "Jesus, Ben. This is like the tenth dead body this month and you start to worry when it's a pedophile?"

"It's not him I'm worried about, Mal!" he shot back, equally frustrated. "You knew killing a man in cold blood would endanger your immunity. Why would you..." He figured out the answer before he finished asking the question. The tension left his body as though it had been knocked out of him.

"Evie." Mal kicked the man again, harder. She felt Ben's hand on her shoulder, and this time didn't shrug it off. He guided her away from the corpse. "She cried for days. She was so...different after that."

"I'm sorry, Mal. I really am." They were empty words, but when Ben said them it almost felt like they meant something. "You know I have to include this in my report."

"Do what you have to. I don't care." She turned away from him to make a call. "I'll get this trash taken out."

A few hours later, she got a text on her burner from Ben. Can we meet?

Mal didn't reply right away. She was standing in front of yet another ratty apartment building with a sparkly backpack. Dizzy had dropped it in her haste to escape, and somehow Mal had missed the obnoxious thing until after the body had been taken away.

She knocked, and Drizella answered the door. The mother looked as though she couldn't decide whether to be relieved or terrified. Mal held out the backpack.

"Thank you." The older woman tossed it on the floor behind her. "Dizzy would thank you too, but she's sleeping - "

"No I'm not, mama. I couldn't sleep. I told you." The little girl appeared under her mother's arm. She still seemed pale and jittery. "Is he dead, Mal?"

"Sweetheart, don't - "

"Yes."

The three of them were quiet for a second. Then, "I want to kill the bad guys too. Can you teach me?"

"That's enough, Dizzy. Go inside. We're very - thank you again. Good-bye, Mal." Drizella closed the door, but Mal could still hear Dizzy's complaints and whining. Kids were so stupid - stupid enough to think that Mal wasn't a 'bad guy' herself. But Drizella knew, and eventually Dizzy would know, too. Whatever was left of her innocence after living in this place hadn't been ripped away from her today, but eventually she'd see Mal and everyone else like the monsters they truly were.

To Ben, she messaged, Yeah. Usual spot.

Their usual spot was a parking garage on the east side of AU's campus. Ben had a sedan on loan from the ACIA that he'd been using for this op. Mal joined him, slipping into the passenger seat. "How's the girl?" he asked. Like he never doubted that Mal would go and check.

"Fine." Aside from the sudden interest in homicide. "How's my immunity?"

"Not as fine. But I'm working on it." He sighed and gripped the steering wheel, even though they had no intention of driving anywhere. "I get where you're coming from, Mal. You're used to things being done a certain way, and this is a big change. But I can't protect you if we don't follow certain rules."

Mal shook her head. "I was only in this for Evie. You were never going to be able to protect me. This isn't just how I do things. This is who I am."

"This is not who you are," Ben countered firmly. "Not at all. Before you killed him, you were there to save that girl. You could have walked away and let me handle it, but you didn't." Mal did not acknowledge this, choosing instead to play with a loose thread on her shirt. Ben continued softly, "I don't know how much you care to hear this, but I understand why you think this way about yourself. My father - he was an ACIA agent, too. Part of the team that was responsible for cleaning up Auradon...by shoving everything they didn't like into the Isle." Mal's head whipped up. Now it was Ben who wouldn't look at her, fiddling with the air conditioning in the car. "He thought the kids that grew up there were collateral damage. I didn't. And for a long time I carried that shame because for some reason, what my father did became my fault. But it isn't, Mal." It had been a kindness, his avoidance of her eyes before. Because now he had her locked in, lost, drowning. "What they do isn't on us. We make ourselves, and we can choose to do better. I chose to join up with the ACIA so I could do something about the Isle."

Either the car was getting stuffy, or she was having some sort of breathing issue. Mal cleared her throat. "What did he have to say about this? Is he still working there? With you?"

"Mm-hmm." Whenever that connection between them broke, an unwelcome clear-headedness made her realize how much of an idiot she must have looked, with her jaw hanging open like that. "You've met him. He's the director now."

A short, involuntary burst of incredulous laughter escaped her. "The director? Sending his son out here? No wonder he didn't want me working with you."

"Yeah, he was a little...aggressive. Sorry." He gave her an apologetic smile. "I'm going to try and make sure the two of you don't have to cross paths again."

"That'd be nice." A comfortable silence fell between them before Mal blurted, "I'm sorry, too, if it matters. For what happened today."

She could tell he hadn't expected that. Mal supposed he didn't know how conditioned she was to apologize, many times for things that weren't her fault. But always to her mother, and always to avoid punishment. Not this time. Not if we want to be better, Evie agreed.

Ben's surprise quickly gave way to gratification. "Thanks, Mal. And for the record, I really do want to protect you, if you'll let me. You shouldn't have to pay in jail time for growing up the way you did."

It was an odd feeling - almost...touching? - that he would press the issue once Mal had already told him immunity had never been a deciding factor for her. But also, it was laughable that he thought he could. "I'll think about it."

Ben rolled his eyes, and Mal exited the car before smirking unnaturally. Because Mal did not smile. It was an unnatural smirk, goddammit.