Chapter Forty-Eight: Sleepover
April 23, 2011
"We totally should!" Flicker agreed, a little louder than Taylor would have preferred.
"We can kick the boys out and use the main conference area. Should be plenty of room," Missy planned aloud, while Willow nodded eagerly.
Just as Taylor had feared, the air of excitement caught Laserdream's attention. "You girls cookin' something up?" Like Emma, Laserdream seemed to have an innate understanding of the social climate around her. It had been too much to hope she and Glory Girl might head home before the Wards' plans drew their attention - not when Panacea and Fi were having some sort of quiet discussion that seemed to involve enthusiastic hand-waving.
"Girl's night," Willow told her smugly.
As expected, Laserdream's face lit up and she motioned for Glory Girl to join her. Taylor scrambled for something to say - anything really - to discourage her, but couldn't come up with anything that wouldn't be terribly rude. "I like it," Laserdream said, before explaining to Glory Girl in an aside, "The Wards are going to have a sleepover in the base."
"Perfect! I'll text the parents."
Glory Girl immediately began tapping on her phone, even as Laserdream advised, "Tell them we'll head over to the base after patrol so they don't think we're trying to ditch out on it. Mom wasn't super pleased with losing us all day to training, and Shielder promised we'd do the rush hour patrol to make up for it."
Glory Girl stopped texting long enough to give her cousin an incredulous look. "An hour?"
"After which, we get a sleepover," Laserdream reminded her. Glory Girl scrunched her nose, but didn't argue further.
"What do we want to do for dinner?" Flicker asked. "Anything in Brockton Bay we need to try before we leave?"
"Fugly Bob's?" Taylor offered cautiously. She'd been meaning to go by the place anyway. She wanted to know if her super-powered appetite was a match for the Challenger.
"Not burgers," Willow protested. "We always order burgers."
"We can get takeout from Li Sung's?" Missy suggested. "It's basically just Chinese food, but it is owned by a local family."
"I'm game," Flicker agreed. "Objections?"
Laserdream didn't look totally happy, but everyone else was nodding, so she didn't speak up.
"I'll make the call," Fi said from behind Taylor. She and Panacea had evidently been near long enough to understand the gist of what was going on. Fi turned to Panacea even as she dug her phone out of her pocket for show, disguising the fact that the call would be routed through her visor. "Since I assume you won't be out on patrol, would you like a ride straight to the base?"
Panacea shifted uncomfortably. "Vicky can drop me off at Brockton General and pick me up on her way afterwards."
Fi hesitated a moment, then nodded. "Sounds good. See you in a couple hours then." Panacea nodded back at her, and Taylor tuned their goodbyes out to focus back on the rest of the group. Missy was encouraging the Boston Wards to pick up their luggage and head straight for the base, even though she was going to run home and get nail polish and other supplies for the evening.
Taylor split her attention between the bare-bones planning happening in front of her, and the tactile pad hiding in her storage compartment. It had originally been part of an armored glove, but Kid Win had repurposed it into a comm system for her. The screen was sensitive enough to detect the pressure from a small bee, and so combined with a little reprogramming, Taylor now had a discreet way to communicate. She used the system now to send an email to her dad at work, asking if there was any chance he'd be able to come pick her up and shuttle her around for a bit.
She couldn't wait until she found some way to game her powers into increasing her mobility.
"You okay?" Missy asked as they stood in line to pick up the Chinese food. "You're quieter."
"Been awhile since my last girl's night," Taylor confided. Truth be told, this was not the circumstances under which she would have wished to revive the experience.
"All the more reason to do it, right?" Despite the words, Missy's tone was hesitant. She knew Taylor well enough to know something was up.
"Crystal is going to spend the whole night griping," Taylor replied, remember to use Laserdream's civilian name, since neither she nor Missy was in costume, and the girl's hero identity might encourage eavesdroppers. "I was looking forward to it when it was just us… but with them too? Not so much."
They'd be lucky to get through the night with even a guise of civility, if the earlier moods were anything to go by. Fi had done an amazing job of letting Laserdream's attitude just roll off her back, but Taylor knew how grating it was to have someone constantly picking at you. Just because she was being stoic and taking the higher road didn't mean that the comments didn't hurt.
So far, Taylor had managed a civil relationship with the other Wards, and much more than that with Missy, Jason and Fi. The movie night, although disastrous in the end, had gone pretty well up until the Simurgh intervened. She pessimistically hoped tonight wouldn't be as bad as that.
Missy shrugged uncomfortably as the line moved forward by one person. "Sorry, I didn't realize. You could have said something?" Missy offered in a questioning tone.
Taylor shifted her weight, equally unsettled. "With them standing right there?"
Missy winced as she remembered. "Still, it's better to have it out at a sleepover than the next time we see them be in the field, isn't it? Better not to let this stuff fester?" The line moved forward again.
Taylor didn't answer immediately, but Missy waited stubbornly. Finally, Taylor said, "Not sure a sleepover is the best way to mitigate the damage. What are we supposed to do? Watch movies the whole time?"
"There's some board games we keep around base for killing time."
"Anything that we can get eight girls to all agree to?" Taylor asked pointedly.
Missy shrugged again. "I guess we fall back on classics. Paint our nails, gossip a little, maybe play Truth or Dare."
Taylor groaned. "No. Absolutely not."
"Relax," Missy assured her. "I know how to make it harmless. If you get everyone to write out the questions and dares before the game starts, and then draw randomly, it's usually pretty safe. The questions have to be general, and the dares can't be too embarrassing because you don't know who will get them."
Taylor considered that. It would certainly make the game safer, if not totally secure. Still, there had to be better options. "We could play poker, if you guys have chips?"
"We do, but that's not the best idea." Missy glanced around as the line move forward again. "Vicky will want to play for money."
"Oh." Yeah, not happening. At all. "Primping and movies it is, then." And she'd have to make sure she stuck by Fi. There was no reason to believe that Laserdream would be any better behaved tonight than she had been all day, and no reason to leave her to fend for herself. Missy could play hostess, since this was her idea.
"Sorry," Missy muttered. "I get that this isn't your first choice for the evening. But sometimes politics are necessary."
"What she said today wasn't politics. It was flat-out bullying," Taylor disagreed.
Missy shrugged. "I know. I get it. You think Sophia didn't give me my fair share of shit? The point isn't that what she's doing is okay. The point is that we don't have much choice. We need to be able to work with her in the future. We need to show she doesn't intimidate us. We need to try to be friendly."
"Letting her walk all over us isn't going to make us a more cohesive unit," Taylor countered.
"So we stand up for ourselves." Missy plowed on when Taylor would have argued, "Look, this isn't like the schoolyard, not exactly. Crystal is going to push until Fi snaps back. And then she's going to back down. If you want to snap at her first, you can. She's testing boundaries. I prefer to just let stuff like this slide past unanswered. I feel like ignoring it's the most elegant answer I can give. I'm not witty or good at retorts. If you don't want to play it that way, that's your call. I'll back it."
The man in front of them put his wallet back in his pocket and the girls stepped up to the counter.
"Pick up for Sarah?" Missy asked the cashier, using the name Fi had ordered and paid with. While Missy dealt with signing for the food and requesting extra napkins, Taylor thought over what she'd said. It put the afternoon in a different light, knowing that Missy was purposefully distaining Laserdream's criticisms with her silence. It had seemed, from the outside, like she just hadn't realized or cared what was going on. But looking back, Laserdream had been a little more subdued around Missy. Had the other hero known that Missy wasn't impressed with her posturing? Could Taylor achieve the same cool silence? Did she want to?
Taylor had eventually turned to silence in the face of Emma's manipulations and humiliations, not daring to give her one-time friend any new ammunition. But she associated that tactic with lesser defeats, not any sort of victory. After months of forced pacifism, Taylor's gut reaction was to say no, she didn't want that. Maybe for Missy silence was defiance, but Taylor would much rather speak her mind. If she could muster the courage to do so. It was incongruously easier deal with a physical assault than a social one.
The kidnapping the night before had actually shaken her much less than she would have thought, if she'd been asked to predict her own reaction. Missy had been surprised by her nonchalance as well, when they'd debriefed that morning. It was hard to put her finger on why, exactly, she wasn't more upset.
Was it that she'd sensed from the beginning that there was something insincere about the attack? She'd noticed their avoidance of the upstairs and their reluctance to wake her father almost immediately, and had even used it against them by drawing them out of the house and into the reach of the greater portion of her swarm.
Perhaps it was the genuine camaraderie that had come afterwards, when they were eating in Fi's apartment. Maybe it was just how well she'd been able to hold her own and adapt to the various threats. She'd gotten to try out several of her traps and develop two new ones. She'd tested some of Kid Win's equipment and found that she really like the pill-bugs. It was a very simple idea - to literally "bug" her opponents to better track them as they came in and out of her range - but it had worked marvelously well against Flicker and Willow both.
Missy handed her two bags of Chinese food, breaking her out of her self-assessment, and they headed out of the shop together.
"Which truck is your dad's?" Missy asked, even as Taylor was already headed over to the vehicle.
"Not a truck," Taylor corrected.
"Huh. I could have sworn I saw one outside your house."
"That's Ryan's from the down the street. He thinks if he parks over a couple houses no one will notice that he skips school." She slid across the back seat, putting the food next to her so she could buckle in. She used the bug-pad in her backpack to text Fi, letting her know they were en-route.
"Fun plans tonight, ladies?" her dad asked as they pulled into traffic.
"The usual," Missy explained without explaining anything at all.
"Eating contest?" he guessed.
"Dad!" Taylor protested the bad joke. "Come on!"
He chuckled, but didn't press the question. It was a silent and somewhat awkward side to the PRT base. Danny knew that the girl in his backseat was a Ward. Clearly, she wasn't Contract, which meant that she was Vista. However, even knowing just this much was a huge sign of trust. Taylor didn't take that lightly, and had explained the importance of secret identities to her dad in great detail.
Partial reveals like the one the Wards had done to Jason's family, or to the Boston Wards, were rare- rarer than seemed to be really practical. Taylor had been assured at great length that the Boston Wards did not actually know where her house was. Though they wouldn't explain exactly how Flicker's teleportation worked, everyone had been quite insistent that her identity was in tact, and that Flicker would not be able to return to the house. It had been that sincerity and concern that had finally led to Taylor deciding to show her face to the Boston Wards.
Missy had only shown her face to Taylor's dad as a sign of her trust and friendship. While it helped that they could spend time together after school, carpool to the PRT base, and talk in somewhat-vague details, Missy had explained that these considerations alone would not have prompted her to trust Danny if she didn't already completely trust Taylor. Taylor, in turn, had impressed the gravity of the situation on Danny, who had been both relieved for Taylor's sake and a little intimidated by the seriousness. All of which contributed to the current awkwardness.
Finally, they approached the PRT building. As soon as she was in range, Taylor sorted through the details of her swarm, left unwatched in her lab all day while she practiced with the Wards.
The feeding groups were doing pretty good. These were the most common bugs, the flies and mosquitoes and other pests that made up the bulk of her swarm. She had ten huge aquariums for them to help prevent the spread of disease and regularly replenished the masses with new blood.
The go-groups were not faring as well. The idea was to have crates of insects ready to be loaded at a moment's notice, should she need them, but the air-tight containers were tough on the bugs caught in them. She'd exchanged and shuffled the bugs only a day ago, and already nearly a third of the ones she'd prepped were dead. Reluctantly, she manipulated the control bugs to open the go-crates and freshened the swarm from the feeding groups.
Her breeding programs were not quite as disappointing, but weren't too promising either. It had been Kid Win's idea to try to breed better bugs, with the idea that the short life span and thus short breeding cycles of bugs should let her specialize quickly. That had not proven to be strictly correct. She'd driven around Brockton Bay in a huge van, collecting any bug that seemed to be particularly hardy or useful - a spider that was spinning faster, a beetle that was stronger, a bee with stronger senses - and had eventually collected quite the 'elite' swarm.
But two weeks of breeding later, keeping the strongest of each pool and moving the weaker half of the populations into the feeding groups, wasn't showing much improvement. She was running out of breeding pool and they were becoming inbred faster than she was seeing improvements in the new generations. She directed a mass of bugs from her feeding groups into the breeding aquariums regardless, keeping the stock well-fed and encouraging them to breed again.
Perhaps it was time to re-think the execution of that idea.
"Having fun?" Missy asked as the car drove into the underground parking structure.
Taylor looked up, not even realizing she had zoned out. Quickly, she lifted the bags off her lap, startled that she hadn't noticed just how warm they were. "Sorry."
"It's fine. I know the look of a tinker lost in her work when I see it."
"I'm not a tinker," Taylor grumbled. The team had laughed when Fi told them her theory about Taylor's versatility, and seemed to derive a particular enjoyment from comparing her to every and any power classification.
"Same principle," Missy insisted. Her smile was soft, though, and took any possible sting out of the jibe. Taylor smiled back ruefully. In spite of their age gap, it was surprisingly easy to be Missy's friend. She was strong and confident, but didn't need to assert herself constantly to prove it to anyone. She was older than she seemed at first - perhaps because of her parents' divorce, or maybe just from being a Ward for so long - which helped close their physical age gap.
She was also surprisingly sensible, almost unshakable really. She didn't try to lead or assert herself often, but whenever she spoke the rest of the team listened. When they were just in private, the two of them, Taylor found she was easy to talk to. In some ways, she was almost too personable, so that Taylor was sometimes reminded a bit of Madison. Then Missy would laugh - the only sound she made that seemed actually appropriate for a thirteen-year-old girl - and the similarity would fade away.
The car pulled up next to the elevator. "You two be good," her dad instructed.
"Yes, Mr. Hebert."
"Bye, Dad."
They carefully climbed out of the car, keeping the bags upright, and Missy used her hip to call the elevator. As they watched him pull away, Missy broke the silence.
"You've got a pretty cool dad."
"I know."
"Can I ask you something?"
Taylor nodded, even though she had a pretty good idea of what was coming. Whenever Missy used that super-sensitive tone, she was about to ask something about the bullying campaign.
"Why didn't you ever tell him?"
"What could he have done?" Taylor asked rhetorically. Missy sighed, but didn't protest. Taylor elaborated, "It would have only made him miserable. And angry. He might seem mellow, but he's got a temper when provoked. Boston's lucky they didn't wake him."
"I was a little surprised he didn't say anything. That's a lot of self-restraint."
Taylor didn't look at Missy - she didn't think she reacted at all, not even looking away, really - but her teammate somehow guessed the truth.
"Unless he doesn't know."
"Like I said, he was asleep," Taylor deflected as the elevator arrived. They got in, keyed the appropriate floor, and Taylor ducked down to scan her retina.
Missy didn't drop the subject. "You haven't told him?"
"I've barely seen him," Taylor protested.
"Are you going to tell him?" Missy asked, more curious than accusatory.
Taylor didn't answer, knowing that would be enough for Missy. Instead of lecturing, the other girl just sighed again. "I get it. I didn't tell my parents about Coil. It's just… he's trying, you know? That counts for something."
It was Taylor's turn to let out a whooshing breath. "I know." Missy's home life was… well, it was what it was. But there was a reason that the two were hanging out at Taylor's whenever they could both manage it.
Missy's elbow bumped Taylor's in a brief moment of camaraderie, and they shared a smile as the elevator doors opened.
The Boston Wards had already arrived, and were helping Fi make the last of the arrangements. They'd dragged the Wards' personal desk chairs out into the conference room, re-aligned the surveillance monitors and stacked the unwanted furniture against the far wall. The room felt a little cramped, since the conference table still took up significant floor space from its position in the corner, but it could have been worse.
Missy and Taylor made their way over to the table and started unloading the food. It smelled heavenly, and Taylor wondered if it would be too terribly rude to eat while they waited for New Wave.
"Wow. Are we preparing for siege?" Flicker asked, taking in the ever-growing array of Chinese boxes.
"I wasn't sure what people wanted," Fi deflected from the far side of the room. "Whatever we don't eat can just go in the fridge for us to snack on while on monitor duty."
"Yeah. Sure," Willow agreed, eyeing the table. It was a little excessive - Fi had ordered eight boxes of main dishes, two sides of rice, three of chow mein, and a large stir-fry veggie bowl to top it off. Each box probably could have fed two high school boys or five high school girls. From their point of view, Contract seemed to think a sleepover of eight girls would be eating fifty servings of food. In reality, Taylor would probably eat a box on her own, and Missy would be about the same. Fi would eat for ten or twelve people, since she hadn't eaten all day, and would eat that much again in the middle of the night.
Taylor shrugged rather than try to say anything further. Better just to play it off as an eccentricity than protest too much.
"Any word from New Wave?" Missy asked unnecessarily. She was the one they were most likely to contact when they were on their way.
"Not yet," Flicker answered her. "Where do you guys keep the games? I figured I go ahead and pull them out."
Taylor, remembering Missy's warning about Glory Girl and poker, asked mildly, "Won't we want to eat first?"
"I will," Willow agreed. "The exercises today were something else!"
"Really useful, though," Flicker said. "When we get together with NYC, it's usually more organized. We've got obstacle courses and stuff we go through. I liked the more fluid stuff today. Get more out of it, you know?"
"Easier to target what you need to work on," Taylor supplied.
"Exactly!" Flicker crowed. Taylor was just grateful she didn't blush. The instant camaraderie that the Boston Wards had extended to her was nice, and helped soothe any lingering sting over her kidnapping, but it still surprised her.
Willow sat down in one of the re-arranged seats, and Flicker for some reason decided to sit on her lap rather than claim her own. "I certainly wouldn't mind coming back in a month or two. It would be good to mix up training a little more."
"I would have thought the New York team was big enough to keep you on your toes," Fi observed mildly.
"They participate on an opt-in basis, and since they get a lot more training between their various sub-teams we kinda tend to see the same faces over and over again," Willow explained.
"Why isn't this stuff more common?" Taylor asked the question that had occurred to her early that morning. "It seems super useful."
"It is," Missy assured, "now that the city's so quiet. Before January we really didn't have time for this sort of work. And you tended to get all the training you needed on the job."
Taylor thought back over her time as a Ward. "Quiet" wasn't really the word she would have chosen for it. Between the Endbringers and Coil, it seemed like they'd been unusually busy.
"Plus it means giving up a weekend," Flicker observed. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm glad we got to come meet you. But finding a weekend that works for a whole team - for two teams?" She shrugged. "Still, we'll have to see what we can do in the future."
"New Wave's here," Missy informed them, slipping her phone back into her pocket. "They just checked in at the front desk."
"Excellent. Let's break open the food!"
Flicker hopped off her teammate's lap to let Willow up, then took over the seat when she was gone. Taylor stood up too, eager to eat. Fi had found paper plates somewhere, along with napkins. Taylor grabbed a plate and a pair of disposable chopsticks, and so had her hands conveniently full when the elevator opened.
Greetings were made all around, and there was some shuffling for food and seats. Even within the first moments, the cracks in the large group became apparent. Flicker, Glory Girl, and Laserdream gravitated easily together, all of them boisterous and socially gifted. Fi seemed to stick by Panacea, surprisingly, and as Panacea remained in her sister's outer radius, Fi became a sort of second-hand hanger on. Taylor and Missy and Willow, on the other hand, formed the sort of 'second clique' of conversation, more from not being a part of the other group than from any firm sense of friendship.
Within minutes, they had exhausted the easiest conversation topics. Even with people occupied by eating, there just wasn't much they could say while their real identities were secret. Perhaps that was how Panacea's quiet conversation with Fi ended up getting the attention it did.
"You're really good with these," the healer said, waving her own chopsticks for emphasis.
"Try moving up on the shaft a little. No, I mean, move closer to the food. You'll have more control, and it's not like you're trying to eat rice or anything." Fi hadn't bothered with a plate, merely claiming an entire box of pepper chicken, which she'd topped off with rice. She was making short work of the food, not the least hindered by the utensils.
"There's more than one way to use them, too," Fi volunteered after another mouthful. "You've got them both moving every time you pinch. I keep the bottom one anchored, and just manipulate the top one." She demonstrated the hand posture - one chopstick pinned in the deep part of her thumb joint, the other rotating on the top of the thumb directed by her index and middle finger. Panacea tried to imitate it and dropped both sticks back on her plate.
Fi shrugged. "Different methods for different people. The best thing is just to pick a posture and practice, really. I think we did get some forks, if you prefer." She managed to deftly feed herself a large clump of rice without looking at her hands.
"I'll manage," Panacea sighed. "Just not as quickly."
"Show me," Glory Girl asked, leaning over. Fi twisted her wrist around and exaggerated her hand position.
It said something about the tension of the room that they managed to talk about chopsticks for the next fifteen minutes. They compared techniques, traded stories of how they'd first learned to use them, which all basically boiled down to a lot of dropped food and practice, and eventually let the conversation die, as they listened to Glory Girl and Laserdream trade stories about Photon Mom, who had been the one to teach the New Wave girls.
Somehow - Taylor wasn't really sure how but somehow - Laserdream managed to switch topics and ramble on about her boyfriend of nearly three whole months. "He's a big old softy at heart, really. I mean, he doesn't even want people to know that we're dating because he's all worried about my image."
"Why?" Flicker asked. New Wave grimaced.
"There was some stuff a little while ago about my being a slut," Laserdream said as casually as she'd described the still-unnamed boyfriend himself. "An old boyfriend wanted to get back with me, I said no, so he posted a bunch of shit online. Stupid stuff. But I had had my first date with the current BF just a week before, so if it had come out that we were going steady too soon after, it would have looked bad. I didn't know what to do, but he understood my concern. He suggested we just keep everything secret."
"He's great," Glory Girl said. "Much better than my boyfriend."
Casually, as though she didn't know, Missy asked, "Oh, are you and Dean on again?"
"Yeah," Glory Girl answered with a flip of her hand. "For now. It just seems like we're never in the same place at the same time, you know? I mean, he's great. And it's great when we're together, but, like, are we going in the same direction? He's all about college and moving away and, I mean, I don't really know if I see that for myself, right? High school's hard enough with cape shit. College? Why bother?"
"So you're going to join the Protectorate then?" Fi asked casually. Glory Girl gave her a blank look. "For your career, I mean."
"I guess," Glory Girl said doubtfully. "I could just stay with New Wave too."
Taylor understood Fi's drift: New Wave wasn't a government organization. All the adults worked full-time jobs to be able to afford their independence. If Glory Girl meant to carry on the tradition, she would indeed need a career. It seemed that point had missed Glory Girl entirely.
"You could go with him, and be an independent hero wherever he goes to college," Flicker offered, thinking over the situation. "I mean, it's not like people don't know you're dating."
"And chase a boy all over the country? Carol would flip." Glory Girl's lips popped on the last word. "And I mean… I don't know. It's just that I'm busy, you know. School and patrols and whatever. Seems like we never see each other. He doesn't make the time to see me."
"Has he canceled dates?" Fi asked with mild censure.
Glory Girl waved the question away. "No, it's not that. It's just that we never hang out anymore, you know? Like, we used to just meet up and do whatever. The mall or the boardwalk. Now I only see him a couple times a week."
Taylor exchanged a glance with Missy. It hadn't taken her long to notice the strain between Vista and Gallant, though she hadn't understood it until Missy admitted her crush in the safety of Taylor's kitchen, pink with embarrassment.
Now, Missy was doing her best to ignore Glory Girl, focusing on her kung pow beef. Gallant had been running himself ragged to try to make time for Glory Girl - taking weird shifts to try to free up prime hours, and even extending his patrols if it meant they might end up in the same areas.
Glory Girl, however, kept blowing him off when he tried to meet up with her and setting tentative plans that never quite seemed to work out. This past week, she'd used excuses such as being tired and hanging out with friends whenever Dean had tried to get in touch with her. They'd gone to see a movie on Wednesday, Taylor thought, but Glory Girl had had patrol afterwards so they hadn't gotten to eat or actually talk.
"Must be difficult," Willow offered. "Is he just not interested?"
Missy looked up from her food and met Taylor's eyes. They couldn't say anything, of course, since they weren't supposed to know "Dean, Glory Girl's boyfriend" personally. Still, it wasn't easy to sit and listen to Glory Girl talk down about their teammate.
"Who knows," Glory Girl waved a hand. "Maybe we just need a break. Wait until summer when we'll have more time."
It was Panacea who added the next hidden jab, asking mildly, "Aren't you going to that camp this summer?"
"Yeah, for like, eight weeks," Glory Girl said, again missing the point.
Taylor took the opportunity to turn the conversation aside. "What about you, Panacea? Any boys?"
She shrugged. "Not really. The hospital keeps me busy."
"You're not missing much," Fi offered. "Most teenage boys are pretty clueless."
"Clueless, yes," Flicker added her two cents. "But there are… other talents."
Laserdream's eyes focused on her. "Oh, do tell."
"Brian and I just passed the six month mark." Something in her smile hinted at a deeper meaning.
"Yeah? He any good?"
Flicker flipped her hair over her shoulder with a toss of her head. "Would I keep him if he wasn't?"
"Well it's certainly not for the conversation," Willow muttered, but she either wasn't heard by her teammate or was ignored.
"He does this-" Flicker continued before Fi cut her off.
"Eating here, thank you very much."
The remark was perhaps a bit rude - not really any worse than Flicker preparing to discuss her sex life in front of near strangers while they were all eating, but still not particularly tactful.
"No action for you, then, I take it?" Laserdream asked pointedly.
Fi met her gaze steadily. "You could say being raped rather damped my enthusiasm for the subject."
What little congeniality had remained in the group died with that cutting remark. Taylor looked down and picked at her chow mein. Missy was looking across the circle of chairs with open sympathy, along with Willow and Flicker. New Wave just looked stunned.
Fi stood up. "I'm gonna grab more chicken. Anyone else need something?"
"Coke?" Flicker asked softly. Fi nodded as she walked back to the conference table to put a box of food in the microwave on her way to the fridge.
Glory Girl nudged her cousin, and it didn't look particularly gentle. "What?" Laserdream hissed back. The dirty look she got in answer spoke volumes, and she settled back into her seat, sullen.
The subject of Fi's trauma hadn't come up among the Wards since the night of the Simurgh's last attack. She'd alluded to it during her maskless interview, and there had been some hints on some of the early PHO threads that people had caught that detail, but then it had sort of died down. Taylor suspected that no one really knew what to say about it, which was kinda her own reaction.
"I didn't mean to bring up a sore subject," Flicker offered into the resounding silence. Fi brought over the coke, her food still whirling in the microwave in the background.
She shrugged as Flicker reached out to accept the can. "Don't sweat it. It's my bad anyway - should have kept the old trap shut. I'm just not really used to being around people who don't know and treat me like glass because of it."
"Oh." Flicker obviously didn't know how to respond to that.
Fi's infuriating habit of sounding so casual when discussing what should be important subjects probably wasn't helping her coherence. "Anyway, point is I'm not really eager for a boyfriend. You never did say - how did you meet yours?"
"School friend," Flicker said cautiously. "Class project, actually."
Taylor decided to step up and help out her friend, bringing the conversation back to a more casual topic. "What about you Willow?"
"My girlfriend and I have been together about four weeks. She doesn't like me to discuss her with non-civilians."
Well… that went over like a lead balloon. It was Glory Girl who stepped up next to try to diffuse the awkwardness. "Poker, anyone?"
"No," chorused Laserdream and Missy together. Laserdream elaborated, "You cleaned me out last month, remember?"
"Maybe another game, then?" Willow asked. She floundered for a moment, obviously without any idea of what to offer.
Taylor herself was wishing she remembered which games they had besides the poker chips. She didn't know any card games that would accommodate eight players, and she couldn't remember if Missy had specified which board games they had. The only one that came to mind was, "Truth or Dare?"
The girls brightened, and Missy stood up to go over to the monitor station. "I'll get the pens and paper," she said, assuming they'd be using her version of the game.
Glory Girl either wasn't so patient, or had no idea what Missy meant. "I'll go first," she said at the same time.
"Let's wait for Vista," Taylor braved saying. "It's more fair this way, anyway."
"What's that?" Flicker inquired.
Missy explained as she came back with pens and paper in hand. "Write down your dares and your questions, each on their own slip, and fold them up. Then we'll all draw out slips for our turn."
"Seriously?" Laserdream drawled. This time, Glory Girl didn't elbow her. "Why complicate things?"
"What if we draw write down the same stuff?" Flicker asked before Missy could answer.
"Or draw your own dare?" was Glory Girl's non-helpful contribution.
Fi shrugged, accepting paper and pen from Missy . "Don't write down anything you wouldn't do."
Glory Girl scoffed. "Where's the fun in that? If we're going to do this stupid game, there ought to be a little risk."
Taylor was immediately uncomfortable. She didn't have a problem with the game in principle - sharing harmless secrets and mild embarrassment actually wasn't bad bonding strategy for new friends or for established friendships - but in middle school she and Emma had been a part of more than one game that got out of hand and this group seemed to have that potential.
"I think we should just do it this way." Taylor gestured with her own paper and pencil. "I mean, you wouldn't want to," she scrambled to think of something really terrible, "French your sister or something."
Glory Girl's eyes shone at the challenge. "Pah-lease. What's one kiss?" And with that, she turned to her side, put her hand on the back of Panacea's head, and gave her a mouth-to-mouth kiss.
Panacea squeaked, but it was over before anyone in the room really understood what had just happened. Technically, the quick closed-mouth kiss didn't count as Frenching, but no one objected. In the background, the microwave beeped. Glory Girl preened. "My turn, right?"
Fi went to go get her food, and the others were too stunned to protest. Glory Girl wasn't the least bit embarrassed. In fact, Taylor was blushing more than she was. Poor Panacea was red as a tomato.
Glory Girl promptly looked across the circle. "Flicker, truth or dare?"
There was a moment when someone could have stopped it - the train wreck could have been averted, the game could have been abandoned - but there was just enough social momentum that no one did.
"Truth!" Flicker chirped, getting into the swing of the game. Fi returned to her seat with her second box of food.
Glory Girl looked eager as she asked, "What's the longest you've ever gone without showering?"
"That's easy. I do week-long and ten-day camping trips with my family without showering. So, yeah, somewhere around ten or eleven days." The other girls in the circle laughed and relaxed, and Taylor breathed a sigh of relief. The game seemed to be taking a safer turn, at least for now.
"Where do you camp?" Laserdream asked, genuinely curious.
"Anywhere and everywhere. We don't mind driving a day or two to the location, since we're going to be out for so long anyway," Flicker explained. She looked around at the assembled group. "Panacea, truth or dare?"
"Truth," she answered, with a wary glance toward her sister.
Flicker hmmed for a moment, thinking, before she asked, "What was your first kiss?"
Panacea's eyes went back to her sister for just a moment, but then she said, "Ah, Sean Kennish. It was last year, after a football game. No big deal. We went on two more dates after that, but it just wasn't right." Panacea was visibly tense as she spoke, and Glory Girl reached out sympathetically and put her hand on her sister's knee comfortingly. Perhaps there was something else there, that Taylor didn't know about?
Panacea visibly shook herself and turned the attention outward. "Vista, truth or dare?"
"Dare," Missy responded, looking distinctly uncomfortable. Taylor was a little surprised that she'd volunteer to be the second dare, considering the accidental first dare that had started the game, until she remembered the question that had just been asked. If Taylor didn't have a first kiss story to share, Missy probably didn't either. Depending on what questions got asked tonight, she and Missy might both be left without any good answers.
Panacea didn't need to think about the dare before she commanded, "I dare you to dance crazy for 60 seconds!"
With visible relief, Missy got to her feet and started to bounce and sway. The dare got more embarrassing when Flicker used her phone to play "Yankee Doodle," but it was still a safe and funny dare.
When the song was over, Missy collapsed back in her seat, sweating slightly. She looked over at Taylor, who was glad her first dare would come from her friend. "Truth or dare?"
"Dare," she said. If it had just been the Wards, she might have said truth. Truth or Dare had been one of her favorite games to play with Emma, because the funny memories and the shared secrets shared could become so, so precious. In this group, however, she wasn't sure if she was really willing to be open. Taylor trusted Missy not to ask about anything she knew was a sore subject, but her past was so riddled with tough spots and good memories made sour that she didn't want to risk it.
"I dare you to do ten cartwheels."
Taylor climbed to her feet and the girls all cleared a space for her. Ten miserable attempts at acrobatics later it was over, after much good-natured encouragement and ribbing from the girls. Even Taylor could laugh through her embarrassed blush. Who hadn't been picked yet? Fi was available, but it wasn't really fair for the Brockton Bay Wards to all pick each other. Willow hadn't been chosen, and neither had Laserdream.
"Laserdream, truth or dare?"
"Truth," she said casually. Shoot, now Taylor needed a good question. Something non-sexual, to keep the game safe, and something other than "your most embarrassing moment" which was a cheapie. Finally, Taylor fell back to one of Emma's old favorites. "What's one thing you would change about the past year, if you could?"
"I never would have gone out with Jimmy Baldwin," she said simply.
"Oh, details," Flicker demanded.
"He was… boring. A good kisser. But otherwise, just boring." The girls all giggled at that. Laserdream looked across the room at Fi. Shit. This was going to be bad. "Truth or dare?"
Fi met her gaze steadily, obviously weighing which option was likely to be worse. "Dare."
"I dare you to show us your power. Your real power, not that telekinesis crap you used all day."
Silence reigned for only a moment, but it felt much longer. Fi managed to respond evenly, "Any particular party trick you were hoping to see?"
"I want to see whatever it was that defeated Behemoth."
"How badly do you want it?"
Laserdream leaned back at the seriousness of the question. "What?"
"How badly do you want to see it?"
Laserdream scoffed a little, "It's Truth or Dare. You chose the dare, you do it. Or you have to answer two questions."
Fi's eyes flickered to the side for just a moment. It might have just been her reading something off her internal display, but it didn't seem that way. Something in Fi's posture reminded Taylor of the moment when she'd called Alexandria "Rebecca" and the dangerous note in her voice when she'd ordered the Triumvirate out of the building, and they'd obeyed.
"I think that might be best. Ask your boon questions."
Laserdream's chin jutted out, displeased. With a certain amount of viciousness, she asked, "How'd you trigger?"
"Crys!" Glory Girl yelled.
Beetle found herself on her feet, and Vista was only a step behind her. Together, they formed a physical barrier between Contract and Laserdream.
"Not cool!" Flicker interjected.
"Crystal!" Panacea added her voice to the protests.
In the single moment of silence before Laserdream could have defended herself, Fi said evenly, "I failed. A young girl was about to suffer for my mistakes, and I was unwilling to accept that. I fundamentally rejected the reality of human evil as it presented itself before me. Having just been raped, I would have died rather than watch a six year old girl endure the same."
The other girls around the circle looked sick. Even having heard the short tale once before, Taylor herself felt sick. It was made worse by Fi's steady tone. It was too similar to the tone she used in so many different situations - was every one of the conversations as hard as this one was now? Was the careful control always an indication of such inner turmoil?
The whole circle was looking at Fi, stunned, as she calmly asked, "What was your second boon?"
"We're done," Glory Girl said, cutting off her cousin. Laserdream opened her mouth and Glory Girl insisted, "That's enough, Crystal. We're done here. I think it's best we painted nails, or some shit like that."
So saying, she grabbed Crystal's arm and dragged her up, out of her chair, and into the tiny office attached to the conference room so they could talk in private.
"Sorry about her," Panacea offered quietly.
Fi shrugged. "It's been six years. That event no longer has the same power to hurt me."
"Even so, she shouldn't have asked."
Fi inclined her head, "Thank you."
"So, ah," Willow tried to break the tension, "should we just switch to a movie, or do we actually want to paint nails or…?"
"I wouldn't mind a pedicure," Panacea volunteered, and Missy nodded.
"Might be nice to break up into smaller groups for a bit," Flicker agreed. "Besides, we've got to paint our nails for the dance next weekend. Unless you were planning to pay for a pedicure?" she asked her teammate.
"Nah, you do a better job anyway."
Missy went to collect her polish collection which she'd brought from home for the occasion, and Flicker produced the handful of bottles that were part of her enormous travel cosmetic kit.
Fi got up to go toward the bathroom, and Taylor tracked her with her bugs. She took a handful of towels out of the linen cupboard, but then just stopped and leaned against the far sink, staring into the mirror. After a moment, Taylor realized Fi was crying, and Taylor ducked down the hall to check on her.
When Taylor looked into the bathroom, Fi was crying softly, so she closed the door behind her and came to lean on the sink next to the one Fi was gripping in both white-knuckled hands.
"It's okay," Taylor whispered.
Fi didn't respond, which was when Taylor realized her glasses were sitting on the next sink over. Cautiously, Taylor reached out and put a hand on Fi's shoulder, so she would know she wasn't alone. Fi shuddered, and choked on a sob.
"Four hundred and twelve people," she gasped.
Taylor didn't say anything. She wasn't sure why the Simurgh was on Fi's mind, but she knew for herself how illogical grief could be.
"It's not your fault," Taylor said, even though Fi wouldn't hear her. She squeezed her shoulder tighter, trying to convey her support without words.
"I shouldn't have said all that," Fi reproached herself. She reached out for another handful of water, and rinsed her face again. Then she pulled out some paper towels, and patted her skin dry, hiding the redness.
Once her glasses were back on, Taylor murmured, "Maybe, maybe not. But it was only the truth, after all."
"It didn't help the situation," Fi observed.
Taylor huffed. "What's her problem, anyway?" Over the course of the day, it had become obvious that Laserdream didn't like Fi, but Taylor didn't feel like they'd really gotten to the root cause yet.
"Could be anything. PHO has a number of conspiracy threads saying I could have done something sooner, or that I purposefully let the Simurgh attack Australia, or that I didn't deal with the Simurgh until after the capeless funds hit a certain threshold – that I was being greedy, basically. There's people who are mad I haven't donated all of the Endbringer rewards, when the reality is that almost everything is still in escrow.
"There's people upset that I haven't dealt with the Slaughterhouse Nine, or Nilbog, or a hundred other issues. Some people want me to heal other cities like I did New York. Some people are even saying it was illegal for me to change so much of New York and so many people without anyone's permission.
"She could be jealous of my power. It could be anything, but I think it's most likely it's got something to do with the whole unmasking business. I don't really care."
Taylor tactfully didn't point out that for a girl who didn't care, she had just moments ago been crying alone in the bathroom. "We're here for you."
"I know," Fi gave her a weak but sincere smile. "We should get back out there." She picked up the towels they could use to protect the carpet, as her excuse for why she'd left the room.
Taylor accepted the change of subject, and they trouped back out to the main room. Glory Girl and Willow were already doing each other's toes, while Flicker was showing Laserdream pictures of more sophisticated designs on the monitors, and they were deciding if it was worth the effort to try one. Fi chose to sit down next to Panacea, so Taylor took the seat next to Missy, within murmuring distance of Glory Girl and Willow.
"Sorry about Laserdream," Glory Girl said quietly as Taylor offered a warm, wet towel to Missy. "She's touchy about the whole secret identity stuff, and I think it's spilled over into, well, anyway..." she trailed off awkwardly.
"Flicker will keep her occupied," Willow offered. "She gets along with everyone."
"She okay?" Missy muttered to Taylor. Taylor didn't have to ask to know she meant Fi. The bugs near Fi were picking up murmuring between her and Panacea, but she still wasn't practiced enough to know what they were saying. The girls were just rubbing lotion on their own feet, but they seemed to be getting along.
"She mentioned the Simurgh's victims when I went in." Taylor said, before she elaborated, "I think it just brought up Ash again." She remembered being the one crying in a bathroom when the grief hit unexpectedly, trying to stop and wash her face before it became too obvious. It wasn't a look she thought she was likely to mistake on her friend.
"Can I ask?" Willow ventured. "I mean, if it's secret identity stuff…" she didn't finish the question. Of course it was secret identity stuff. Everything was, really.
Missy glanced over at Fi. "Well, I guess that cat kinda got let out of the bag last night, didn't it?"
Taylor tried to remember exactly what Fi had said as she ranted at Clockblocker, but couldn't recall the exact words.
"Who's Ash?" Glory Girl asked.
Taylor and Missy exchanged a glance, and Taylor looked down. She didn't really know the protocols here, when it came to another capes' secrets, but she did remember how it felt after her mom died. She had told Emma to explain the situation to anyone who had asked, to spare her the awkwardness of having to do so. Taylor tried to think how to answer the question, with as few details as possible but enough so they'd understand. She just didn't know what she was allowed to say in this situation.
"He's her uncle," Missy finally said, "the one who died the day the Simurgh attacked."
"She mentioned him in the interview," Glory Girl confirmed. Willow's forehead wrinkled, and she looked up from Glory Girl's toes.
"Last night…" she left it hanging, unwilling to outright call any of the Brockton Bay Wards a liar.
Taylor decided that a more detailed explanation was really the only way to make peace. It might not be normal protocol, but she certainly didn't want Fi to have to explain it either. "About the same time that Dragon and Armsmaster realized the Simurgh was on the move, Ash somehow found out about it, too. He called Contract to tell her, in case there was something she could do. We were on video chat with him when…" she swallowed. If it was hard for her remember the gunshot, how much worse was it for Fi? "He was shot, live on camera in front of us. The man who did it had had Simurgh exposure in the past. The shock of it put Contract out of commission until the next day. We don't think the timing was a coincidence."
That wasn't too many new details that Willow hadn't already known, and just enough to quiet Glory Girl's suspicions. Plus, Fi had technically mentioned Ash in the interview in the aftermath, telling the whole world. Missy gave her a subtle nod, and Taylor replied with a quick smile. At least she hadn't said too much.
"She saw it happen?" Willow whispered.
Missy nodded. "Yeah. We all did." She shivered, remembering. Taylor shook her bottle of polish, more for something to do than anything else.
"What's she like when she's not, you know, fighting for her life?" Willow asked. "I feel like we've kinda gotten a skewed glimpse."
Missy shrugged, trying to act casual, but didn't seem to have an answer. Taylor took a stab at it instead. "She's a little intense, I guess. But she's always trying to do the right thing. She's usually got a really good read on people, but she can be a little defensive."
Missy nodded. "When you're on her side, she'd bleed for you without second thought. But if you're not, well, she's wary. I think she's been betrayed before, a lot." After a hesitant second she added, "The man that killed her uncle – she knew him. Knew him by name."
"That sucks," Willow commented.
"Jesus," was Glory Girl's contribution. "Can you imagine? Someone you know, killing someone you love, right in front of you?" She shuddered dramatically, "I am so glad the Simurgh is gone."
The girls all hummed in agreement. "Hey," Willow piped up, "is it true you guys had help taking down Coil?"
"You mean Tattletale? Yeah," Missy replied easily, happy to be off the subject of Contract. Flicker and Laserdream, on one side of their foursome, were giggling as Flicker tried to do some sort of pattern on Laserdream's toes with at least three different colors. On the group's other side Fi and Panacea were still talking in low voices.
"What was she like?" Willow pressed. "Weld was asking us the other day if we'd be willing to have her be paroled to our team."
"Are they going to parole her?" Taylor asked. "I thought we wouldn't know for a while?"
"That was before Coil killed himself," Missy explained. "With him dead, she's the best bet for figuring out the full extent of his operation and prosecuting them. She also had to agree to testify against her teammates."
"I heard Grue is going to be paroled to the LA protectorate in a couple months when he turns eighteen," Willow offered. Taylor wondered if that meant he would be eligible for custody of his sister as a 'redeemed' villain, or whether his past would keep her locked in a bad situation. She'd probably have to arrange to visit Tattletale wherever she was being held if she wanted an answer.
Tattletale had told Beetle a bit about all the Undersiders, and how they were each pressured into joining the team, back when she'd been helping the Wards figure out how to take down Coil. It had been a transparent attempt to make her pity the villains, but it had worked more than Taylor would care to admit. Fortunately, they had all been captured and would face the much less partial justice system.
"Tattletale didn't seem too bad," Taylor said. "I don't think we could have taken on Coil without her help. And he did recruit her at gunpoint – it's not like she wanted to be a villain."
"Might not be a great team player, though," Missy warned. "She bit her lip a lot around us, but even so she's got a sharp tongue on her. I'd hate to think what tonight might have become if she'd been here."
Taylor privately thought that Laserdream would have gotten exactly what was coming to her, but refrained from saying so in front of Glory Girl.
"Not exactly a solid recommendation," Willow sighed mournfully.
"Why can't she be paroled here in Brockton Bay?" Taylor asked. "Shadow Stalker was."
"Shadow Stalker wasn't a villain," Missy observed. "The PRT doesn't parole villains often, and when they do they nearly always move them to a new city. Why, do you want her on the team?"
"She was pretty helpful against Coil," Taylor defended the thinker. "More than she really had to be. And in the end, she picked us over her team. She tazed Grue."
Missy shrugged. "If you feel strongly about it, you can testify at her hearing."
"I can?"
"Sure. Just let Clockblocker know you want to speak. He and Armsmaster will have a bigger say about whether she'll come here, but you can at least help her get on another team if they don't send her back to Brockton Bay."
"I think it's scheduled for two weeks from Thursday," Willow supplied.
"Thanks," Taylor said, surprised by their helpfulness. She opened the bottle of nail polish and started to paint her own toes. It had been a long time since she put on more than the barest traces of makeup. When had she last painted her nails? Summer camp, she remembered, back before...before. She had chosen a bright, eye-blinding yellow, and angrily scrubbed it off the week after she got back, having never gotten the chance to laugh at the color with Emma.
"Okay, the really critical question," Glory Girl began pompously. "Hottest celebrity. Go."
Taylor glanced up and saw Willow beaming at the topic choice. "Scarlett Johansson, anyone?"
"Oh my god, yes!" Glory Girl agreed. "Did you see her in that new action one?"
"I meant the Earth Aleph version," Willow clarified.
"Blonde? Really?" Missy double checked. "I think she's way better as a red-head."
Taylor zoned out while the other three gossiped back and forth, listening without really caring. Flicker and Laserdream were still slaving over Flicker's patterned nails.
For their part, Panacea and Fi still hadn't opened any nail polish. Instead, Fi seemed to be giving Panacea a foot rub. They weren't talking, at the moment, but neither were they tense.
After a while, Flicker and Laserdream joined them in the larger circle, and the conversation drifted to movies. Thanks to Missy, Taylor had actually seen two of the films currently in theaters, and so could participate in the discussion. Where she wasn't familiar with the material, she made agreeing noises with Missy or Willow.
It was bad luck that their conversation hit a lull at the same time that Panacea asked Fi, "What was it, that made him intervene?"
The other girls continued on, so perhaps they hadn't heard, but Taylor found herself distracted into eavesdropping on Fi and Panacea.
"There was a little kid. Somewhere in that weird ten-to-thirteen year old range I can never guess properly. Aneurysm. To me, it was just a double-decker cheeseburger."
Taylor wasn't quite sure what the question meant, any more than she really understood the answer, but the tone was enough to tell her it was important. Quietly, almost reverently, Panacea inquired, "That's all?"
"I'm not proud of it," Fi murmured back. "It's not an exaggeration to say that I owe Ash my life." Fi looked up from her toes, and met Panacea's eyes.
Even without the context of the rest of their conversation, Taylor knew what she meant. Something in the tone, the pacing of the words, told her that Fi had been suicidal, and that Ash had intervened. She felt cold all over, wondering why she was so certain that she recognized that tone and could confidently diagnose it.
"Come on, Amy, help me out here," Glory Girl implored loudly, drawing them into the general discussion.
"What was that?" Panacea asked her sister, glancing away from Fi reluctantly.
"We're picking a movie," Willow explained. "Your sister wants Mean Girls."
"And I'm telling you, no," Laserdream insisted. "We always watch that. Pick something else."
"We've got a bunch of action stuff," Missy volunteered, looking through the collection that various Wards had donated to the base over time.
"Any of the good Bonds?" Flicker asked eagerly.
Fi leaned forward, content to join the discussion and leave aside the more serious topics. "Which ones do you consider good?"
Taylor let the following debate wash over her, while she sat at the periphery of Fi's personal space, ready in case she was needed. Eventually they decided on one of the newest films, and all settled down into the blankets and other makeshift bedding available. Without question or hesitation, Fi spread her blanket over both their laps, and Taylor knew that Fi appreciated her help that evening.
It helped make up for the fact that Laserdream fell asleep two bodies away, as a guest and future ally of the Wards.
April 24, 2011
Fi was the first one up the next morning, but Taylor wasn't far behind her, woken when she sensed that someone was moving around. She lazed in the comfortable bedding for a few minutes, checking in on her swarm and doing basic maintenance, before she went to find Fi in the bathroom, just getting out of the shower.
"Going somewhere?"
"Church. It's Easter Sunday."
Taylor raised her eyebrows, startled. "Oh. I didn't realize. You want some company?"
Fi smiled indulgently. "Thanks, but that's not necessary. I've already told Dragon the church I want to check out, and she's cleared it. I've filed an excursion plan with the PRT, and I've been authorized to walk there and back alone."
"That wasn't what I meant," Taylor reassured her. She wasn't exactly clear on all of Fi's safety restrictions, but the thought that she might need escorting hadn't crossed her mind. "I just didn't want you to feel like you had to celebrate alone, if you didn't want to."
"I appreciate it. I really don't mind, though. It wouldn't mean to you what it does to me."
That was true enough. Taylor decided to change topics. "You okay after last night?"
"You worry too much. I'm fine."
"Laserdream was pretty nasty."
"Amy said she's been pretty bitter about the unmasking. The New Wave kids never really had a choice, you know? She doesn't like that I'm defending a villain's right to have what she never did. And since Glory Girl kinda spoke out without permission, she and the others have been told to keep their heads down and mouths shut, just in case it causes waves."
"That's not your fault."
"The joys of being a public figure," was Fi's sardonic reply. Taylor shrugged, not really able to argue.
"Can I ask you something?" she ventured. Fi leaned into the mirror, applying lipstick, but made an affirmative noise. "Are you really okay with the whole kidnapping thing?"
Fi didn't look away from the mirror as she asked, "Are you?"
"I guess?" She'd tried not to think about it too much, really. "I mean, I feel better now that I know how I would fare against superior opponents. I know which of my ideas worked, which didn't, and I've got a thousand more plans to try next time. It's just… I mean…"
"It wasn't meant to be a pleasant experience," Fi offered. Taylor nodded, agreeing. She did feel more confident, knowing how well she could control an encounter, and how close she'd come to getting away, and how well she'd adapted to powers specifically chosen to challenge her. But she'd still been taken from her home in the middle of the night.
Taylor elaborated, "You've been kidnapped before. It didn't… trigger anything?"
Fi shrugged, packing away her makeup. "It wasn't pleasant," she repeated. "I woke up from reliving my trigger event, having just vividly remembered killing five men, and found people attacking myself and Jason. Then Jason was gone. I let myself get taken to follow him. It wasn't the 'being kidnapped' that was stressful, exactly. That part didn't come close to comparing to the severity of either of the previous kidnapping attacks I've endured. I was on much more equal ground, this time.
"The hardest part for me was not knowing who the enemy was. I couldn't judge the appropriate response. There are people out there who desperately want me dead. There are people who want to just hurt me, or to see what I can and can't do. I felt like I was being toyed with, so I didn't know how strong they really were."
"That's why you almost killed Willow."
"That's why I almost escalated against Willow. I don't believe I would have actually killed her. At the time, yes, that was my fear, especially after I realized she was a friendly. Now, in retrospect, I really hope I would have backed off at the last second."
Taylor sighed. "You think they'll do it again?"
"Probably," Fi told her without hesitation, turning to meet her eyes through the soft purple lenses of her glasses. "This was a valuable experience. If they thought it would help us in the long run, I think they might repeat it." An alert went off on Fi's phone, the screen lighting up and buzzing to get her attention. She slipped a purple dress over her head and wig. "Anyone else awake?"
"No." Taylor didn't even need to check her swarm. She already knew the answer subconsciously.
"I need to be on my way." Fi stepped closer and gave Taylor an honest hug. "Try not to worry about this stuff. We can talk more later." Taylor nodded, hugging Fi back.
"Happy Easter," she wished her friend.
"Happy Easter, Taylor."
Fi turned and snuck out of the bathroom and the base, careful not to wake anyone up. For her part, Taylor went down to her workshop, even though she could have just as easily worked from the Wards' base. She wanted to give her workers her full concentration. It was time to make some of those new trap ideas into a reality.
Author's Note: Thanks to the fabulous SlowMercury for beta'ing this chapter. Readers, this chapter may have taken longer than you expected, but it is greatly improved from the first draft. Future updates will probably be about once every two weeks, due to increased busyness in my real life. As always, reviews are greatly appreciated!