Sophie blinked blearily as she pulled her hair back into a loose ponytail and splashed water on her face. The coolness of the water rejuvenated her; her eyes widened, and she could feel her alertness level starting to return. It had been another long night. Not that she'd run into anyone especially dangerous; a couple of burglars were going to be nursing bruised heads for a few days, but nothing more exciting than that. All the same, two hours of sleep was hardly enough to face the day, even if she didn't need to work today. But she had never been one for sleeping in – the first problem she had discovered after taking up her recent nocturnal activities. Staring at her own reflection in the mirror, her hand drifted up to clasp the medallion she wore under her shirt. To think: all of this had started because she'd had to remove a couple bushes on campus.

Hidden safely in its accustomed spot beneath her shirt, the medallion felt heavier than usual, even though, for the most part, last night had gone little different from the last few months. Since the Tarasque's defeat and the Heroes of Paris' return, Paris had almost started to go back to normal. Or at least, as normal as Paris had ever been, given that it was home both to Europe's premier superhero team and one of Europe's most notorious criminals. She sighed wryly. Maybe Paris would never return to the level of normalcy it had had back when she was in collège – regardless of how much the Heroes of Paris, or the Paris Police, or the Superhero Liaison Department, or any of the other groups running around the city wanted it to. Ever since Stoneheart had showed up and turned half the city to stone – to say nothing of Hawk Moth himself – there had just been no putting that genie back in the bottle.

Still. It was better to be part of the solution than one of the helpless civilians just trying to live with the chaos. Late nights be damned.

Giving her bedroom a quick glance, Sophie stepped out of her unit into the communal stairwell and followed the smell of gun oil and gunpowder down the stairs into the quadplex's single semi-functional kitchen. Blinking against the sunlight streaming through the sheer curtains covering the exterior windows, she stretched her shoulders and rolled her neck before immediately walking across to the coffeepot sitting on one end of the counter and pouring herself a mug and dumping in several spoons of sugar. Sipping hesitantly, she repressed a shudder before sighing in relief. "Normally I would complain that your coffee is melting my spoon," she observed, taking a deeper gulp. "But this morning, I'm just grateful."

Without taking his eyes off his work, the man at the table replied, "And now you know why we made it so strong in the Army."

"Fair." Leaning against the counter, Sophie frowned, taking in the mess of gun oil and components strewn across the table, two half-deconstructed pistols sitting in the middle of the chaos. A long rifle with two barrels leaned up against the near corner, just within arm's reach of the table, the oil cloth loosely draped over it barely masking its profile. As the man reached for the coffee mug sitting next to the oil container, Sophie scoffed, shaking her head. "Do you ever mix those two up?"

Without looking up from his work, le Tirreur shifted the coffee mug away from his supplies, picked up a brush, and started brushing down the pistol's slide. "If you can't disassemble your weapon and reassemble it in the dark, under fire, in 15 seconds or less, you have no business carrying it." Holding up the slide to examine it, he replaced the brush and grabbed an oil-stained rag. "And if you can confuse your oil for a coffee cup, you won't last three minutes under fire."

"Still." Sophie arched an eyebrow. "I have no idea how you can find anything in this mess." Eyeing the stack of takeout containers on the floor next to the table, she made a face. "You know, every time I come in here, I regret taking you up on your offer."

His mouth set in a thin line, le Tirrreur brushed most of the cleaning supplies off the table into a plastic tub, clearing about a third of the table for her to sit down. "You're welcome to leave any time you want, sweetheart," he told her, picking up one of the two pistols and starting to reassemble it.

"Don't tempt me," she retorted, taking the offered seat and watching him work. "They finished repairs on my building two weeks ago. I could leave any time I want."

"So do it." Le Tirreur shrugged, sliding the energy pack into the pistol's handle before holding it up to his eye to check the aim against the far wall. "No one's forcing you to stay."

"And have to pay €1000 a month-plus for room and board on campus?" She scoffed. "No, thanks. My job barely covers books and food as it is."

Finally glancing away from his pistol to meet her gaze, he raised an eyebrow at her. "Well, in that case, it sounds like you don't have any room to complain, then, do you?" He slid the pistol into its holster on the side of his leg before turning to the second pistol. "I didn't have to give you a place to stay during the Chaos, remember. And, I didn't have to let you stay when it ended."

With a sigh, she nodded in concession as the third member of their trio appeared in the doorway. "Still, could you try not to live so much like bachelors?"

"Oh?" Albailier quirked an eyebrow at her in amusement, pushing the refrigerator door open with one of his wings and grabbing a carton of orange juice. "And how would you suggest a couple of bachelors should live?" he asked, drinking straight out of the container without breaking eye contact.

Sophie gave him a deadpan look before flicking her wrist. The orange juice in the carton instantly froze, and Albailier lost his grip on the container with a sharp intake of breath. Moments before it would have hit the ground, Sophie flicked her foot, sending a sudden wind burst at the carton and knocking it back up into Albailier's face, melting as it reached him. Catching it at the last moment, Albailier glared at her in annoyance. "You could try shirts as a start," she suggested, arching an eyebrow pointedly.

"Do you have any idea how hard it is to find shirts that will go on over wings?" he retorted. "Especially on a vigilante budget? Say what you will about the Lynchpin, but at least he had R and D."

Giving his pistol a casual twirl, le Tirreur shrugged noncommittally. "You could always try taking what you need from him."

"Tempting." Albailier shook his head, raising an eyebrow at le Tirreur. "Two problems with that. First, no one I've talked to has heard from him in a while. Second, I doubt he has any reason to make normal t shirts for people with wings without me working for him. As far as I know, he doesn't exactly have a flock of bird people in his employ…"

Sophie hummed, standing up and rummaging through the cabinets. "You know, Queen Bee did tell me that they could give us some help if we needed anything – tech, protection, whatever."

Le Tirreur eyed her with a hint of surprise on his face. "When did you see Queen Bee?"

"Last night." She poured some cereal into the last clean bowl in the cabinet and returned to the table. "I went out for a couple hours and ran into her and that new Bee hero… Vesperia?"

"I swear, those heroes are getting younger by the day," Albailier muttered under his breath. "I thought Nabatala looked young…"

Ignoring him, Sophie kept her attention on le Tirreur. "The two of them were out training or patrolling or something when they saw me and stopped to talk."

"Any problems with them?" His eyes narrowed.

She shook her head. "No; the opposite, in fact. Queen Bee actually asked if we wanted to work with the Heroes of Paris. Apparently, they're looking for help with their patrol schedule – especially for the next few months."

Le Tirreur waved his hand dismissively. "No, thanks."

"Don't like the Heroes?" asked Albailier, raising an eyebrow at le Tirreur in a hint of surprise.

He shrugged. "They're fine for what they are," he admitted. "When I need to, I'm not opposed to working with them. And if there's a Tarasque around, I'd rather let them deal with it. But they're a bit too…"

"'Squeaky-clean'?" Albailier suggested.

Le Tirreur nodded. "Yeah. That." He shook his head. "Their methods… leave something to be desired. It's all well and good for them to just stop the bad guys for now and hand them over to l'Œil de Lynx and his people to throw them in that fancy new prison for a few months or years. But that's not a permanent solution. No matter what the 'SLD' do, these criminals are like cockroaches: they're just going to come back."

Albailier pursed his lips.

Le Tirreur gave him a look. "Just one example: how much of the crap Rossi put the city through this summer could we have avoided with a single bullet?"

"True…" Sophie murmured quietly.

"It would have been good riddance." Albailier shuddered. "That chick gave me the creeps, back when I had to work with her."

"Wait, you mean you worked with that sociopath?" Sophie gave him an incredulous look.

"Not by choice." Albailier made a face. "I didn't exactly have options when I started working for the Lynchpin. I had debts from this–" he gestured toward his back "–and Lynchpin had paid those debts – I had to work for him to pay him back."

Le Tirreur leaned forward, a calculating look in his eyes. "You've never talked about where you got the wings from, or how…"

Albailier shrugged, running a hand along the top edge of one wing. "Not much I can say. No idea who they were, or why they picked me. I never really saw them – just the guy to recruited me… and they said he was just a 'headhunter.' But this just… seemed like a better option than a dead-end job washing dishes for the rest of my life."

"There's got to be more to it than that," Sophie pushed. "Where did it happen? How did they recruit you?" She blinked, cocking her head to one side. "Wait… did you say they sold you to the Lynchpin?"

"Not exactly?" He furrowed his brows and paused for a long moment before waving his hand dismissively. "Regardless, I had to work for the Lynchpin for a while, but not anymore. Not after the Tarasque." He frowned. "Of course, the Lynchpin at least could get clothes that I could wear…" Raising an eyebrow at Sophie, he asked, "Think the Heroes of Paris could hook me up?"

She shrugged. "I don't see why not – though I also don't see why you couldn't just put a couple slits in a shirt at the shoulders and go from there."

He grimaced. "I've tried that – several times. All different cuts, materials… It doesn't work out that great: the shirt always seems to tear even more from that spot, and that's assuming I can even get it on in the first place."

Groaning, Sophie sighed. "Fine. Next time I see Queen Bee I'll ask if she can… get you some shirts."

Le Tirreur gave Albailier a dubious look. "Are you planning to work with the Heroes of Paris?"

"Eh." Albailier shrugged. "I'm not opposed to going on patrols with them occasionally. Especially if they can give us some benefits that we can't get otherwise."

Sophie hummed in acknowledgement. "True. I've run into Nabatala a few times lately – the girl is really nice." Looking down into her nearly-empty coffee mug, she frowned. "Though at the same time, I would just as soon avoid having a regular nightly schedule."