Complications 3-5

"You did what?" Lisa laughed so hard I had to steady her to prevent her from falling.

I had just finished catching her up on the Shadow Stalker situation and my almost act of murder the previous day.

"That's hilariously awesome!" She caught her breath. "I know someone who will be happy to know she is out of the picture. She almost killed him a few months ago."

"You're not..." I wasn't sure how to phrase it.

"Not what?" She asked with a grin.

"You know." I nudged her knee with mine.

"I do." She smiled. "But I want you to say it."

Of course she did. "Disappointed?"

I mumbled.

"What?" Her smile grew wider.

I thought about leaving her up here. "Your not disappointed in me? For almost messing it up?"

"Helllllllll no." It was her turn to bump me. "I think it's great you were able to get back at her for the shit she put you through and without getting in trouble, though that's a bit weird. Offer still stands for the other two by the way."

I almost considered it.

"No." I sighed. "I didn't go looking for Sophia it just kind of happened. I'm not going to go looking for trouble."

"For now." She said it so low I barely heard her.

"What?"

"Oh nothing." She sing songed. "So tell me about the other stuff. What are the other Wards like? What's the PRT like?"

"It's weird. At Winslow I was...not invisible, unimportant maybe. Insignificant." I looked out over the bay at the protectorate base. "The other Wards. They seem like good people. They try to include me, even if I don't feel like I fit in yet."

"Give it time." Lisa said. "You will."

"You know you could see for yourself?" I tried. "You know come and be a Ward?"

She laughed. "Oh, Jesus. Already giving the Wards pitch. They brain wash you already?"

"I mean it Lisa. There are people there I would trust to help me. They would help you too."

Lisa gave me a sideways look. "Maybe I have trust issues." She allowed. "But I don't trust anyone in the PRT."

Ouch. "Not even me?"

She sighed, "You know I didn't mean you. You might be the only person I can trust." She grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze.

"Then trust me on this?" I knew the answer before she gave it.

"I do, but I can't. Not with things how they are." She said though it looked like it pained her.

"What do you mean?"

She shook her head. "Lets talk about something else."

Not even an attempt at a subtle change in topic. "Like what?"

She gave me a broad smile. "Cape costumes."

I felt my own smile. "Really?"

She was bringing up our first real conversation.

"Really. What kind of costume are they forcing on you?" She teased.

"I like it..."

"Buuuuuut?" She asked.

"They want it to be white." I said. "All white, except the pants and the leather bits."

"Leather?" Lisa bobbed her eyebrows suggestively.

I felt my face heat up. "It's better than cloth for attaching the armor inside."

"Armor?" Lisa asked tilting her head.

"Not like the PRT or anything." I tried to think of how to explain. "It's like some sort of durable mesh in the fabric. New age chain mail but lighter. Do you know what I mean?"

Lisa thought about it. "Wouldn't stop a bullet but maybe smaller knives and broken glass. Stuff like that?"

"I haven't even gotten to try it on yet." I shrugged. "So, I haven't asked. I figured I would just teleport and blast people."

She reached up to gently tap a finger on the still fading bruise where Armsmaster had hit me. "Surprise attacks are a thing. You need to be careful."

I winced. Even though the tap was a light one, it was still sore.

"So, Tell me what does this leather costume of yours look like?"

"It's not all leather." I made sure to correct her. "Not even mostly. More like a light, durable cloth."

Lisa fakes disappointment. "Where's the leather?"

"What is your fascination with leather?"

She gave a wicked smile.

"Nevermind. I don't want to know. It's in strips that run around my waist and over my shoulders down my back. There are a couple loops that wrap around the upper part of my arm and the cuff of the sleeves."

"I'm having a hard time picturing it." Lisa said apologetically.

"I'm having a hard time describing it." I returned.

"But you like it?"

"It's a little flashy, but yeah." I smiled a bit "I kinda do."

"Then that's all that's important." She said. "It's important to feel good about your look. You gotta own it and be confident to kick ass properly."

"So your saying you actually like that skin tight body suit you wear?"

I asked.

"Of course! It's such a tease that it throws guys off their game." She bumped me again. "And a few girls too."

I shook my head. "No, I turned away because you were taking it off. In my room!" I reminded her.

"Duh. Where else would I change?"

"Oh I don't know, maybe the bathroom?"

She waved it off. "Too cramped. I like to stretch out. It's freeing."

I blushed at the unbidden mental picture.

"Who would have thought? Taylor has a dirty mind hidden under all that self deprecating nervousness."

"Dirty mind?"

"Picturing me naked."

Oh god. She was going full tease.

"You know I'm not really into relationships, my power you know." She leaned closer whispering now. "But I wouldn't mind a quickie now and then."

My face heated up so much I thought I may have potentially been on fire.

Lisa laughed. "You're so much fun to tease!"

"If you say so." I grumbled no heart in it.

"Oh I do. I know you wouldn't say yes but you still give the best reactions."

"What if I did say yes?" I tried even though I knew this was probably part of her game.

Her smile turned wicked conforming my suspicions. "That would be a day indeed. Shall we follow that train of thought?" Her voice lowered and breathy as she met my eyes.

I broke first and looked away, embarrassed.

"Haha I win again." She cheered.

"I don't like when you tease me." I said.

"Yes you do." She said. "And I'm not wholly teasing. I would take a tumble or two with you. I like you, I trust you and I could turn my power off long enough not to totally ruin it. But I don't think you could do it. Not without some kind of romantic connection." She said it so easily.

I didn't know what to say to that.

"You don't have to say anything." She said. "I'm not sure why I did. This isn't going to make things weird for us is it?"

Knowing she would or might even want to, uh, get with me? Yeah it would. "No weirder than you groping me before I teleport you anywhere." And it had the benefit of being true.

"Come on! It's tradition at this point." She seemed happy enough with the answer. "A little encouragement and incentive. Ya know?"

"I have it down where I can teleport the both of us now." I pointed out.

"Yeah but yet you haven't asked me to stop."

And I hadn't. What did that say about the situation?

Comfortable silence fell over us. I had really missed hanging out with Lisa.

"I don't like not being able to call or text." I said.

"I know." She actually seemed bummed. "But they will be monitoring your communications for a while and if they saw you texting on your burner they would either want to see it, or jump straight to a conclusion. I'd say they would follow you around too but they don't have the resources for that even if you weren't a teleporter."

"So just face to face then." I said.

"Yep." She agreed. "But at least you said the Wards were good to you. Makes it suck less yeah?"

I shrugged. "I guess."

"What about your team?" I asked.

"What about them?" She returned.

"Do they make it suck less?" I asked.

"Sometimes." She admitted. "Mostly we do our own thing."

"What do you do?" I asked.

"Research."

Research? "On what?" I asked.

She grinned. "Everything."

Of course.

A breeze kicked up and made the both of us huddle together against it.

"Why are we up here again?" I asked.

"Cause the view is amazing." She gestured to the the unobstructed view of the Bay proper. "And if you one day call me on my teasing for real, we'd have some privacy."

"Can you keep you mind out of the gutter?".

She adopted a haughty tone. "My mind is everywhere all the time. That just happens to include the gutter."

"Seems to be the only place your head is at." I remarked.

"No comment."

"From you? Remarkable."

"Oh look you finally found your sense of humor."

"You know what would be really funny?" I asked. "If I left you up here."

"We are eight floors up and the nearest building is only three." She fixed me with a mock horrified look. "If you leave me up here I could die!"

She was being overly dramatic. So I teleported down to street level and checked that no one saw me using my powers in civilian clothes. Looking back up at the hotel we had been sitting on I could barely see Lisa still sitting on the edge. Of course she knew I would never leave her up there. I waited a minute longer hoping she would at least consider the fact I had left her before teleporting back.

She of course was not surprised I had returned.

"Right on time." She smirked turning around.

And slipped.

I dove at her, pushing us both over and away from the edge. We were in free fall less than a second before I teleported us. We landed, me under her, a bit hard on the ground below.

"Ow." I said.

Lisa adjusted her head and gave me a long kiss on the lips. "Nice catch." She breathed.

I could feel her trembling a little in my arms.

"Yeah." I agreed. "Close one."

We lay there catching our breaths.

"We should probably get off the ground." She said pulling herself out of my arms and getting to her feet.

"Yeah." I accepted her offer hand and she pulled me up and started brushing me off. "Thanks."

She let out a little nervous laugh. "No. Thank you." She grabbed my hand again, this time to hold as we walked. "I was going to ask if you wanted to get something to eat but that scared my appetite away." Another nervous laugh.

It must have really shaken her up. "What do you want to do instead?"

"Honestly? Just walk I think." She pulled me along behind her until I caught up to walk beside her.

"Okay." And so we did.

"I think next time we hang out let's just stay in and watch movies or something." She said.

"No more tall buildings?" I asked.

She shook her head and agreed. "No more tall buildings."

.

There was a knock on my door. "Taylor can I talk to you for a minute?"

Dad.

"It's open." I called reluctantly.

He opened the door and stood in the doorway. "How are things?" He asked lamely.

"Fine." Monosyllabic answers had become my standard for communication with Dad.

He sighed. "I don't understand the issue." He raised a hand to forestall my retort. "I understand that I don't understand and can't really get what you are going through."

Understatement.

"But I want to try to explain why I did what I did." He finished.

"I know why you did it." I said. "It's the way you did it I hate."

He flinched at the word hate.

"You forced me to go Dad. It didn't matter what I wanted. You didn't even ask what I wanted you just made a decision and expected me to go along with it. That's why I'm mad." I fixed him with my best glowering stare.

"I did it because I love you." He said. "I wanted to be sure you had the best chance possible to be a hero and still be able to come home healthy at the end of the day."

He didn't get it. "But you didn't try and talk with me about it you just went straight to the threat of signing me up. You tried to bully me into it Dad."

His head rocked back as if I had hit him.

"I've had enough of bullies." I finished.

He was silent, mouth open with the word he lost. "Taylor I-." He paused collecting himself and pressed on. "I'm sorry Taylor I didn't realize."

I didn't answer him.

"I'm making lasagna tonight." He tried. "Will you eat with me?"

I had stopped cooking for him. Half because I had been busy a few nights. The other half out of spite. Him offering lasagna, Mom's recipe probably, was an olive branch.

"Fine, but that doesn't mean I'm not still mad."

Dad smiled a little apparently happy with what little ground he had gained.

I sighed. "I'll make the sauce. You never get it right."

His smile didn't even falter.

Author's Note: The new cover art should have loaded by now annnd the costume is not totally what I had in mind. If I was any good at art I might have been able to alter the picture to fit what I wanted better but that's what I ended up with. I can roll with it for now and it seems like a feasible costume design.

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