Weld had always liked volcanoes, at least so long as he could remember. There was a draw to them that was hard to deny. Volcanoes, see, had all the strength and beauty of any other mountain, but contained within was an unnatural devastating amount of force, fire and raw power. He was sure there was a metaphor there to be uncovered — something about living life as a walking, talking fountain of disturbance and power.

He could figure out the poetry to it all later. In the meantime, he had bigger problems than that. Like the fact that he was currently stuck in one of the damn things.

"Try not to think of it as a cell," the woman in the gas mask said. Her voice was artificial and flat due to some sort of voice modulator, but she still managed to sound haughty. "Really, it's more like a work of fucking art. How often is it that a tinker makes something that's gorgeous and functional? Once in a goddamn blue moon, at best."

Behind Weld, a series of vents continued to churn out a constant stream of scintillatingly hot fluid. The molten metal oozed across Weld's body, catching on his metal flesh for only a few seconds before dripping through vents to be recycled. No matter how hard he strained, Weld couldn't control the liquid metal, couldn't even keep it in his body. It didn't hurt, but it felt uncomfortable, and it prevented him from pulling himself back together into a solid figure.

"And let me tell you, this particular masterpiece was a bitch and a half to put together," Bakuda continued. "I mean, do you know what a pain in the ass it was to find a metal-generating cape who'd work with me? I can't just get that shit from Kaiser, you know. I had to do things the hard way."

She rapped a knuckle on the glass wall of Weld's cell. Weld, still unable to move a muscle, resigned himself to glaring back at her.

Bakuda just let out a staticky cackle. "Found a kid in New York who finally did it for me. Had to scare him into it, of course, but what is it they say? Fear of mindblowing torment and the murder of your whole family makes the world go 'round?"

"Actually, it's 'money'," Weld replied through gritted teeth.

"Toe-may-toe, toe-mah-toe," Bakuda shrugged.

She turned her back on Weld, pacing down the length of the lab. And it was a lab. Somehow, since the last report of Bakuda's rampage in NYC and the first sighting of her in Boston, the villainess had procured weapons, tools, and boxes upon boxes of bombs.

Everything was contained in her spotless laboratory, tucked away in a cramped apartment. Weld's cell had been constructed in the living room. His back was to the kitchenette, while he faced Bakuda's armory.

This woman was dangerous, competent, and crazy. On a good day, Weld would be wary going up against someone with any two of those traits. This was already not looking like a good day.

Bakuda strode back to Weld, hips swaying. Each slinking step was measured for effect, and her poise smoldered with confidence. Her costume didn't just hug her body, it was poured over her, all tight black fabric and tighter, blacker straps.

The two of them made quite a pair: the hero, immobile and submerged in dripping metal, and the villainess, prowling around him in her nearly-liquid catsuit.

The grenades at Bakuda's belt told a different story, though. This was serious business.

Bakuda turned away from him yet again. Her hair, twisted into a sloppy knot at the top of her head, swished behind her as she left. Weld let out a breath he hadn't realized he could hold.

"Don't go anywhere! Momma's going to be working, and she mustn't be disturbed under any circumstances," Bakuda called out over her shoulder. She wiggled her gloved fingers in a mocking wave.

"The Protectorate is going to find you!" Weld couldn't resist shouting after her. Hours' worth of pent-up rage seeped into his voice, the first cracks in his stoic front. He continued in a low growl. "Whatever you're doing in my town, it wasn't worth it. We've got the best capes in Boston hunting you down, Bakuda. And when they catch you, you're going to regret what you've done."

The tinker stopped in the doorway to the bedroom. She didn't turn around, or reach for a weapon. Her fingers crept up to the back of her head. There was an audible click and a hiss of air as she fiddled with her mask.

Then she spoke. Her voice wasn't warped by the mask anymore. In its absence, she sounded fiercely human.

"You should be grateful I only turned you half liquid," Bakuda hissed. Weld couldn't see her expression, but her voice and her posture brimmed with seething rage. "For your information, the chamber you're in is booby-trapped. Obviously. I kept it simple, just an incendiary device in that cute, hm, disco ball above your head. Try and break out, and your ass is gas. You'll be vaporized before you can even start to beg for mercy."

Her heavy-laden belt dropped to the floor with a thump. Weld forced himself not to flinch at the impact.

"Don't fuck with me."

With Bakuda gone, Weld was left with his thoughts. How had he ended up here? He certainly hadn't started the day intending to be a prisoner by afternoon. Far from it.

They'd received the tip at just past midnight.

Weld and Slant were the only Wards around for the briefing. Armstrong had been very thorough, as was his usual manner. There was a villainess at large in the city who had just fled south from New York. She was currently rated a Tinker 8, extremely violent, and not to be approached at any cost. Her specialty, as far as they could tell, was in producing bombs.

The Wards had received clear orders. Weld could still remember the manner in which Armstrong had delivered them.

"The Wards' job is to stay out of this," the man ordered. His soft face and graying hair made him almost look like the grandfather Weld never had, but there was steel in the man's voice. The humor of that wasn't lost on Weld; it was a factor in how the man had earned Weld's respect. The director went on, "Bakuda is so far out of your league that we'll need to restructure our classification of leagues."

"Sir, I understand that you don't want to endanger us," Weld started, hesitant. He wasn't the type to disobey orders, but arguing on his team's behalf was far from disobedience. If anything, Director Armstrong encouraged it. Another reason why Weld admired the man. "Surely there's something we can do to help, though? Maybe we could shoulder some of the Protectorate's burden as they deal with this."

"Aw, man, I wanted to fight the bomb girl," Slant grumbled. She was silenced by a sharp look from her team leader.

"Actually, there is something you can help with. Damage control. Your team has got the respect of the civilians, and we can work with that."

Weld remembered the pensive look that had crossed his superior's face. His fingers were steepled in front of him. He looked for all the world like a general, calling his troops to action.

"Be ready to evacuate any sector of the city at a moment's notice. You've got Virtu to coordinate, and Slant can manage the fieldwork. She's good with the crowds."

Slant had reacted to that, though Weld couldn't remember the look that she'd shot at Armstrong. There had been other things on his mind.

Weld had just nodded. "Thank you, sir."

"That's not all. I need your team on standby in the event that Accord reacts badly to this whole ordeal. And someone will need to keep an eye on Blasto; two powerful and otherwise unaffiliated tinkers in one city are something to be wary of. I'm not sure what they could do together, but I don't want to risk it."

"We won't let you down, sir."

Weld hung his head. Droplets of molten metal sprayed into his bristly hair, connecting and disconnecting from his power at random. Bakuda had targeted him, and she had well and truly countered him. Weld wasn't sure how she was so familiar with his power, but it was clear that he had been specifically targeted. The chamber, the metal generator, the vents…he'd never felt so powerless.

Sure, he'd been in bad positions before. Weld's first memory was of waking up in a junkyard. There had been a quarter ton of scrap metal hanging off his body, like an enormous zit that was almost as big as him. That first time, the impurities had been painful to purge from his body. The situation wasn't too dissimilar from where he was now. There was a key difference, though.

That first time, he'd felt scared, confused, impure. Now, Weld felt less. It was more than physical, though he could feel the gaping wounds in his torso, not to mention his lack of limbs and most motor function.

No, this feeling of being less was an emotional one, and that scared Weld even more. He'd gotten so used to being in a team of heroes, of having friends and mentors and backup. Being here, alone, suspended in a tank with no chance to use his powers and a bomb above his head? The depth of his failure was palpable.

But that couldn't be it. Weld was a hero. He didn't get cowed by some life or death situation. This feeling, the insecurity, it had started earlier. Before being captured, before the debriefing, before midnight, even.

Dinnertime, a few days ago. He'd been with Slant.

She had been out of costume, at least mostly. Her sweeping scarves and sharp-edged armor were replaced with worried jeans and a cropped t-shirt. The boots stayed on, of course.

Weld liked that about her, the ease with which she straddled the line between heroine and human. Most of the team came to the base and masked up in the locker room. When they interacted with Weld, they weren't "Richie" or "Erica"; they were "Virtu" and "Bell Curve". Wards.

They had their good times, but it was all...boxed in. There was a gap between their cape personas and their real selves that Weld couldn't bridge.

Slant, though, was never just one or the other. She was overflowing with personality, too much life in her to fit behind one face or another so easily.

Sometimes, Gigi spoke a mile a minute, words blurring together at super speed, she was so eager to share everything that she was feeling and seeing and doing in the world.

Other times, Weld walked into the base to find Slant curled up on the team's couch, heart crushed by yet another wife beater or abusive parent that she'd brought in.

Even now, Weld could call back to the subtleties that made up each part of her.

The cute, down-to-earth girl who could make someone's day with a few words of kindness had the same laugh as the indomitable heroine who could kick his ass around in the training ring. They had the same swagger, at least when Gigi was feeling confident, but defaulted into very different postures when stressed.

They had different smiles though.

It had been that blend of features that had caused Weld to first catch interest in Gigi. He had been an idiot the first time, approaching her while they were out on patrol together.

Gigi had paused in her brisk stride, looking like a deer in headlights for a few moments, before resuming at a faster pace. Not even acknowledging him.

Weld could still remember the phantom burn in his ears as the Ward on comms coughed awkwardly and pointed them in the direction of a nearby mugging, or vandalism, or something. That part blurred into a jumble of half-remembered nonsense.

The image of Gigi's figure shrinking as she ran down the dark road and the sharp pang that had hit his chest like a wrecking ball, those things stayed.

Weld had mustered up the courage to approach her again several weeks later. Her response was much more graceful that time around. A few shy glances and shuffling feet later, and her lips had pressed against his.

He remembered the kiss like it was yesterday, how it seemed like her lips were moving to the beat that his heart used to pound. Most of all, he remembered how he hadn't felt anything, not physically. The motion of her body, yes. Her weight in his arms, of course. But nothing else.

Why was that, when he could feel the pain of rejection so sharply?

The burn of the molten metal on his shoulders brought Weld back to the present. He had to focus on the situation at hand.

Bakuda probably wasn't lying when she said she could vaporize him. There was a reason she hadn't. If she wanted information, she could have decapitated him and saved his head only, but she hadn't done that either. She'd fucked him up, sure, but she'd made sure he was at least partially intact.

If Bakuda wanted him to do her dirty work, she had another thing coming. Weld was loyal to the Protectorate, to the PRT, to his team. He'd been serving for years faithfully. He was a leader now. She could pry that monument to his hard work away from his cold, dead, metal hands.

But in the end, Weld had no idea what the villain wanted with him. He steeled his resolve as best he could. There was a long and painful wait ahead of him, and the night was still young.