Nathan's doctor had asked "Seriously, what's going on?" and Blue Rose had eyed him suspiciously when he took to working out in a tracksuit, but it was Agnes who turned up on his doorstep, arms folded, and stared him down. "Fine, come in," he sighed, stepping back from the doorway, and she marched into the house, heels sounding like gunshots on the stone floor.

"What did I say about getting injured?" she demanded.

"I'm not injured."

"Bullshit. I've seen you limping."

"No, you haven't." The burn on his leg wasn't that bad.

She ignored that. "This grudge is out of hand. He kills people, Nathan. You're calling it off if you don't want to go on medical leave."

"Fine, then it's medical leave," Nathan retorted, and she stared at him, her mouth half open. "I'm getting better. I'm learning by watching him. I will take him down, and that'd be better for the city than anything I can do on the show."

"Like hell it would," she said. "Once in a blue moon — okay, red moon — he kills a murderer. That's a big loss! They kill each other in prison."

Nathan pinched the bridge of his nose wearily. "I know you like what he does for your ratings, Agnes, but come on. Let the ratings go. You've proved yourself a dozen times over. Ratings aren't worth anyone's life."

"A serial killer's life? A child molester's? I'd throw them to Lunatic in a heartbeat," she said. "Most people wouldn't need a motivation."

He sighed, trying to resist the urge to actually bury his face in his hands. Remembering Tiger and Bison doing chest compressions on criminals they'd pulled from the church. "That doesn't make it right."

Her turn to sigh. "Nathan. I'm not trying to offend your moral standards, here. You know I don't take the whole justice thing as seriously as you heroes. Even if this wasn't our most reliable post-Barnaby ratings booster in question, I'd want you to stop fighting with whoever it is that keeps setting parts of you on fire. I'm worried about you."

"I can take care of myself," he said, but he was touched. Agnes usually couched her expressions of concern or affection in ulterior motives she might or might not really hold, rather than stating them baldly like this. Though, of course, it could be ploy to keep him from killing Lunatic himself, but he wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. "Really. I know what I'm doing."

"Obviously not!"

He finally convinced her to leave with vague assurances that he'd 'be careful' and 'reconsider this.' What he was actually considering was the same thing that had been on his mind since the latest encounter: Lunatic knew, not just his name, but exactly which Nathan Seymour he was. Lunatic knew his identity, and Lunatic insisted that he only killed those guilty of crimes, that he knew he was weeding out the guilty and leaving the innocent unharmed. Lunatic... was almost certainly linked to the Justice Department. This was a lead. Lunatic's victims were well-known and well-documented. He could do this. He could, at least, coordinate the list of Lunatic's victims with the prosecutors and judges involved in any of their trials. See if any patterns emerged.

It would keep him from questioning his own motives for becoming a hero. Or anyone else's.

At least, he'd thought it might, but at a bar with Antonio that night, he swirled the wine in his glass thoughtfully and asked "Why did you become a hero?"

"Huh," Antonio said. "Nathan, you feeling all right?"

"I'm fine," he said. "Why wouldn't I be?" I'm certainly not recovering from second-degree burns all over my body.

"Well, you haven't grabbed my ass in weeks, and that question actually sounded serious."

"Oh, are you feeling neglected?" He reached, and Antonio pivoted on his bar stool to evade him.

"Absolutely not!"

"Aww." Nathan gave up the attempt, more easily than he once would have, he had to admit. "You really know how to make a girl feel unwanted."

"Seriously, man. You're not acting like yourself."

"I have some things on my mind," he hedged. "And you never answered my question."

"I dunno," Antonio said. "It wasn't like I had some childhood dream or anything. It seemed like a good way to use what I'm good at to make a living, and actually help people. And I did have a friend in the business. Kotetsu started a year or two before I did."

"Yeah," Nathan sighed. Blue Rose had sought to promote herself as a singer; he knew she was more dedicated now, but teenager that she was, she shied away from talking in-depth about her motivations. Dragon Kid had been groomed for it by her family, and while he knew she was a good kid at heart, dedicated to her work, she wasn't acting out of some grand ideal. Origami had been motivated as much by guilt over the arrest of the friend he considered better-suited for the role as he had by anything else, from what Nathan had pieced together; he seemed to feel obligated to become a hero in Edward Keddy's place. Sky High and Tiger both believed, wholeheartedly, in justice, in protecting the weak. And Barnaby had been motivated by revenge, or closure, although Nathan was inclined to think his later statements about protecting and helping were sincere; Tiger had that effect on people. Lunatic might well not realize it, though.

"What about you?" Antonio asked. "Why'd you go for it? It's not like you were out of work, Mr. Energy Tycoon."

"Hmm." He took a sip, but he wasn't in a mood to appreciate the wine. "I had a flashy ability that looked impressive, and didn't really have any peaceful applications. I figured this was something I could do with it, which was why I tried out for Hero TV when I did. And I couldn't get sponsorship. So that was eye-opening."

"When was that?"

"Hmm... back in '66. Over the summer. So I decided, fine, I'll do this my way — but being a hero was always on the agenda. We needed a gay hero."

"Flaming," Antonio agreed, good-naturedly, and Nathan smiled at him.

"You know that was part of my original pitch."

"I'd be stunned if it wasn't. Wait, though — '66? You're younger than me. You were just a baby!"

"And seven years later I bought out Helios," he said.

"Yeah, yeah, rub it in. So everything you did was just to get into the hero business?"

"No, I love collecting cars too," Nathan said. The conversation turned — Antonio was looking to buy a new car — but Nathan's thoughts didn't. No, he hadn't set out on his rise for the top just to become a hero. But he'd made himself famous, and wealthy, and eventually powerful, for the same reason he'd become determined to be a hero after that initial rejection: because he wanted to prove that he could. He could take his pink hair and his flaming mannerisms on TV and make himself a star. He could take his royalties and invest them, buy properties and start up businesses, and turn them into a real fortune, the kind he could use for something larger than just purchasing houses and cars. He could take his fortune and buy out one of the top corporations in the city, in the nation, and sit in a corporate board room with his lipstick and his glitter eyeshadow, even when he was wearing a three-piece suit.

Somewhere along the way, it had become about proving something more. Letting the kids like his younger self know that you wouldn't always have to wash off your makeup before your mother saw, that eventually you wouldn't be the only one in the room. There was more to life than small towns and high school.

It was a different kind of justice than Lunatic probably meant. Or Tiger, for that matter.

And yes, that did mean he was a lot more aggressive when he went after the three men who'd beaten a trans woman to death, back before all the smaller companies got out of the game and the sponsors got gunshy about "controversial" crimes — Lunatic was right about that — and Hero TV still sent the heroes on hate crimes or sexual assaults. He'd been furious when Agnes told him about the pressure they were getting on that front. For a while, he'd patrolled like Keith had, and he'd even interrupted a few attacks in progress. He should do that again, he thought. Even if his schedule was tight. He had time, now and then. Any time was better than none at all.

Yuri had set up one of his monitors as a television when he began watching Hero TV more regularly. He could always view the recordings later, but watching the episodes as they aired was something to do, when he had no current targets and had finished the work he'd brought home. But the familiar theme music always drew his mother's attention, her calls for him to bring her to the television, her questions about his father's current standing. It was easier to watch it away from her, while she was otherwise occupied.

He'd begun to watch for signs of injury in Fire Emblem, at first out of curiosity, then, when he realized his opponent was not taking any apparent time off, actual concern. He'd never intended to kill Fire Emblem, or any other hero; he didn't know the extent of Seymour's injuries, but surely they were at least as painful as his own. The pain affected his focus and effectiveness at his own work, which was entirely mental. Even given that Fire Emblem stayed at range, for the most part, and probably hadn't punched anyone save Yuri himself in the past year, being a hero was more physically taxing than practicing law. He couldn't help but be impressed that Seymour was carrying on his work as a hero, as well as maintaining his own corporate duties.

So when Hero TV ran a short segment about Fire Emblem and Sky High apprehending a group of criminals involved in a mugging, it caught his attention. "One of the witnesses recorded this video on a cell phone," the announcer was explaining, and Yuri turned his eyes away from the grainy, uneven video to look up the intersection named on the screen. "Sky High could not be reached for comment, but we were able to contact Fire Emblem by phone." Yuri listened to the familiar voice, overlaid with less-familiar plummy, feminine tones, saying "The police can't always reach the scene in time. Neither can heroes, but we can try. No one's ever said we have to stop protecting the people of this city when the cameras stop."

The location was close to a gay bar. He knew the address had sounded familiar.

He followed the story as more details emerged; a few months ago he might have been more cynical about the timing of this news, but both the heroes seemed reluctant to answer questions about the incident. Perhaps, he thought, Seymour had just taken to heart some of their discussion. Perhaps publicity was sometimes unavoidable, for them. He listened to the interviews with the two men the heroes had saved, and the witnesses, as it became clear the "mugging" had clearly been an assault motivated by homophobia, and the prosecutors were seeking hate crime charges.

The moon waxed closer to full, and Yuri hunted a man who'd been convicted of second-degree murder. After years of domestic violence incidents that never resulted in charges, William Kincaid decided his wife was cheating on him and strangled her. He'd been well-to-do, a doctor, respected in the community. He'd been a model prisoner.

He'd served twenty-five years, for a woman's life.

He wasn't a career criminal, though, and that made him both easier and more difficult to hunt. His life outside of prison echoed the patterns he'd had before; he played golf, he ate dinner with friends who apparently didn't consider murder a significant character flaw, he shopped at the same upscale stores where Yuri himself bought his groceries or gifts for his mother. He was easy to track, and would be easy to kill, yet Yuri held back. He hadn't had a vision of his father's ghost in months, taunting him with questions about justice; instead, he heard Nathan Seymour's voice, saying You're spreading agonizing death out of the goodness of your heart, calling fire barbaric, telling him It's the only language you understand. He found his hand going to the healing wound on his abdomen as he tailed Dr. William Kincaid, and he drew the hunt out, delaying his kill.

The weather grew cold, the moon grew full, and Yuri needed to decide what he would say when he next faced Seymour.