It's always an odd feeling, waking up after Panacea got her hands on you. I guess human nature had ingrained this… expectation of sorts, that after getting your ass kicked, you'd feel it the next morning. Instead, it was just a burning, starving hunger, and an empty feeling throughout my body.

Well, an emptier-than-normal feeling, at least.

I was still wearing the blood-covered armor I'd hastily tossed back on after she'd healed me. The blood had dried and started flaking away, leaving the bedspread covered in little flecks. I sat in the darkness there for a minute or three. Everything around me felt bare and foreign, with a heavy helping of claustrophobia. One of the many reasons I'd normally stayed in one of the visiting cape suites upstairs, instead of in the Wards HQ. Unfortunately, Leviathan had put an end to that.

Finally, time to get up, and hope today was better than yesterday. Careful of the slightly-ajar door into the main room that gave me just enough light to see by, I pulled off my armor, dropping it to the ground. It took a few minutes to switch into a clean bodysuit and fit my older gauntlets to the newer armor. My hands were… I vaguely remembered asking Panacea to make them smaller, and it was weird. Not just shorter, but slimmer fingers. They didn't fit my gauntlets quite right, but too small was preferable to too large, at least.

Finally, helmet under an arm, I stepped out. The common room had little electric lanterns everywhere providing light, atop boxes and crates and hanging from ruined fixtures. All of the monitors around the room and on the wall had been blown out, replaced a laptop sitting on a crate, running a tiny version of the PRT's dispatch system. I had to squint to see clearly. Lots of capes on patrol, more dots than we had members. I guess with the situation we had going on, that made sense.

I put it out of my mind, and instead wandered into the kitchen area, looking around for breakfast. Instead I found Flechette, one of the new arrivals, making what looked like some sort of dirty rice. Fried rice? Brown rice? Rice that had stuff in it besides rice.

She'd looked around when I'd walked in, gave me a nod. "Hey."

"Hey."

"You okay?"

I shrugged.

"Rice?"

I shook my head, and dug through a cabinet for a handful of energy bars. "No time. Thanks though."

"Boss wanted to see you, if you're up for it."

"Piggot?"

"Weld."

"Oh."

Maybe my disappointment was too obvious. "Yeah, sorry…"

"Alright," I sighed. "See ya."

"Bye…" She gave me a smile before turning back to the stove.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd had a conversation so refreshingly short and succinct. Leaving her to her weird rice, I stuffed an energy bar into my face, tossing the wrapper on top of the precarious trash mountain the bin had become. Two more energy bars as I walked out of the headquarters and up the stairs. The rest went into armor compartments for later.

"Clock to Weld, you needed me?" I radioed as soon as I had my helmet pulled on. The stairs were busy, surprisingly so. Or rather, maybe it wasn't that surprising, given the elevators were probably fried and the building was on generator power.

"On the roof," was his curt reply. Whatever, dude. I finished trudging up and out onto the rooftop. It took me a few seconds to adjust to the light.

It was a bright, sunshine-filled day, and out there somewhere were the Slaughterhouse Nine. Weld was standing by the little smoker's bench, where Tattletale of all people was lounging. They were both looking at me as I stepped over. I couldn't help but notice her costume was surprisingly blood-free, the only sign that remained were the holes in her gloves. There was a sturdy-looking tracking bracelet on her ankle.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Clockblocker, are you feeling better?" Weld said, looking me over. I couldn't help but notice his metallic eyes settling on my armor, and my older, less-bloodstained gauntlets. I put them behind my back, even if it made me look like a chump. Last thing I needed was explaining that situation to him.

"I'm fine. Where do you need me?"

I could barely notice him squint his eyes slightly. "Tattletale here has agreed, given the circumstances, to help us out in exchange for some concessions. You're in charge of keeping her out of trouble and away from the Nine."

Hold on. What?

"Weld, with, um, all due respect, I'd rather be fighting them. This is our town and you want me babysitting? Make one of the foamsluts do that shit."

"The decision was unanimous. You aren't to—"

"No, fuck that man," I cut him off. This guy comes in here, invites the Nine along, and then has the steel balls to pull me off the team? Fuck you. "You know my power. I can help, and you're benching me? What the hell?" For fuck's sake, I'd frozen Leviathan and he was doing this?

"There is more to it than that, Clock. Things we can't talk about in front of—"

"What, the Thinker who can practically fucking read minds?" I shouted. "You can't mess with me like this."

"Clockblocker, this isn't an option." His voice was angry. "Shut up, take the assignment, or you'll sit downstairs on console for the foreseeable future."

"You don't know what you're doing."

"Okay. That's still your assignment." He looked down at my flatly. Fuck you.

"Fine." What else was I supposed to say?

"Good. You'll have details soon enough."

"Was there anything else?"

Weld shook his head, stepping away.. "That will be all." He walked past me to the door, leaving me with Tattletale. She wasn't even trying to hide her smile.

"Fuck you," I grumbled at her, looking away.

"If you're going to be guarding me, you should at least try and get along with me," she replied. "Besides, it beats dying to the Nine, right?"

"I wouldn't be so sure." With nowhere else to go, I sat by her on the bench. "Man, I just… this is my city, you know? And with my power, I can help. I can fight, and they have me stuck here. It's…" I couldn't find the right word for my frustration, so I settled for a classic. "It's bullshit."

Tattletale was looking at me, eyes roving up and down my armor like it meant something. "Maybe give them what they want?"

"The fuck is that supposed to mean?" Oh boy, time for another Tattletale moment.

"Talk to a shrink?"

"Fuck that, I'm fine."

"We both know that's not true."

Do we though? I mean, I'd been through a lot, that was true. Dad's medical issues, triggering, becoming a cape… that was just the beginning. But we were all broken, we were all fucked-up, why did they get to fight while I got sidelined? I leaned back, my helmet making a cringeworthy scraping noise against the brick. "That doesn't even matter," I finally said. "I can fight. They can use me. What matters beyond that?"

"Do you know who the Slaughterhouse Nine picks for recruits?" Tattletale asked. I glanced over at her. "No, really. None of them are stable. They'd probably end up fighting you."

"Excuse me? I would never join them."

"Sure you wouldn't."

"Fuck you."

"Oh you don't want to fuck me."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

She sighed. "Weld doesn't like you because he sees a prankster with obvious mental health issues dodging therapists like their life depended on it."

"I'm fine."

"If you keep telling yourself that maybe it will become true."

"Tattletale, has anyone ever told you to shut the fuck up?"

"You're afraid. You already know you're broken, it just hasn't hit you yet. If you see a psychologist and they confirm that, now you can't pretend everyone else is as messed up as you are."

"We're capes—"

"We're all suffering, yadda yadda trigger events" she said in a singsongey voice, cutting me off. "Step one is denial. Justifications, all that bullshit."

"Why are you even doing this?"

"I'm stuck with you for the foreseeable future, if I'm going to deal with reading your mind I'll at least make it tolerable."

I sighed. "Can we at least… not do this?"

"Lame. Fine."

Five minutes in and I wasn't sure who I wanted to shoot more, her or me. "How long is this supposed to be?"

"Why are you asking me?"

"Oh, so you don't know?"

"I didn't say that," she said quickly, a bit of irritation in her voice. "I'm not your free answers box."

"Look, I just want to know how long I have to deal with you, assuming the Slaughterhouse Nine don't murder us or have Bonesaw fuse us into some horrifying combination of each other."

"Hey, I'm not too thrilled about being chained to you either."

I stood, walking around in a little circle because my legs were starting to feel restless. "So you're a villain, half your team dies to Leviathan, the other half die to the Nine, or join the Nine. Where does that even put you?"

"Please don't try to Tattletale me," Tattletale said.

"I mean, jail is the obvious choice. Or you could run solo, but you'd say the wrong thing and get your head crushed. Joining another gang, maybe?"

"Seriously, you're not good at this."

"Or maybe it's your chance to get out." I grinned. "A Ward, maybe? They wouldn't keep you in Brockton, of course. If that's too risky, one of the independent teams. Haven?"

"Are you done?"

"What, you don't like it when you're on the receiving end?"

She smirked. "Not when it's from a moron who's making my brain cells evaporate."

I frowned. "That's kinda mean."

"Did you mistake me for a nice person?"

"Sorry." I went back to sitting next to her on the stupid bench. "I'm just… this sucks."

"Yeah." she was a bit quiet, I noticed. I got the impression she noticed I noticed, I couldn't pinpoint why but… yeah. "The answer is that I don't know."

"Hmm?"

"What I'm going to do."

"With what?"

"With all this. I'm a supervillain, in a war zone, surrounded by my enemies. I'm not exactly in my comfort zone. Normally that's a good thing, but…"

"But not like this?"

"Yeah."

I shrugged. "If it makes you feel better, I don't know what I'm doing either."

"It doesn't, but thanks." She sighed. "We lost a lot when Leviathan hit."

"Grue and Skitter?"

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry."

"No you aren't."

"Yeah, I am. I know what that's like. We lost teammates too, in more ways than one."

"There was… I guess it doesn't matter now. Skitter was… she reminded me of someone I used to know."

"Can't say I feel the same. I was scared of spiders as a kid. Still am." I shuddered at the memory. Carlos had had a good idea, but we hadn't known about her.

She was quiet for a moment, looking off the side of the building. There were sirens in the distance, but my PRT comms were quiet. "Maybe you're right," Tattletale finally said. Before she could continue, the door opened. Commander Calvert, one of the PRT operations folks. His eyes latched on to us right away. "Ah, there you are."

"Hi," I said. "What's up?"

He held out a small folder to me. Inside, a few pieces of paper. Orders. "Those are for you, Clockblocker. Your formal assignment. I'm glad to hear you'll be helping us with our guest." I wasn't sure what to say to that, so I just nodded. He continued speaking. "If you would like to look those over, I'll watch over Tattletale."

I glanced between them. "Uh… sure, I guess?"

"Thank you. I'll have her meet you… mess in ten? That will be all."

"Alright." I shrugged, and headed towards the door, looking at the papers. Tattletale had been opening up to me for some reason, confiding. Why? Some sort of ploy to gain my trust, probably.

Or maybe she was actually opening up. She'd lost her team, after all, and been through a lot worse than losing a hand. It was more than reasonable to want to talk to someone.

Or, more likely, it was a scheme of some sort.

Whatever.

By the time I made it to the mess hall, my eyes had looked over every page I'd been given, and none of it had made it to my brain.