It's hard settling in, the first week. Everyone walks on eggshells around each other, tense and exhausted, afraid to break the silence that's settled over the penthouse like a fog. Chase can hear them all, crying at night in their rooms, trying to muffle the sound. They sit at the breakfast table with stiff spines and red eyes, pretend they're okay, and say nothing. Chase doesn't say anything, either.
The second week isn't much better. They sit in their respective groups—Chase and Bree at the island, and Oliver, Kaz, and Skylar at the couch—huddled together like pack rats. It reminds Chase morbidly of high school.
Kaz is quiet in a way that seems unnatural for him—his shoulders slumped and head bowed, lost in his grief. Oliver always has a lost, vacant look in his eyes, like he's trapped in painful memories. Skylar barely eats, and her face grows shadowed. Still, no one says anything.
The third week bears little fruit. They start training, Skylar with dark, storming eyes as she tries and fails to teach Oliver and Kaz how to use their powers, and Bree and Chase sparring quietly together. They've fought together since they were young—they know each other's moves by heart. Their training isn't anything more than a performance.
During the day they haunt the penthouse like impressions, nothing more than shells of who they were. Bree and Chase rarely leave each other's sides, bones settling as they rest in each other's space. It's unnaturally quiet without Adam and Leo around, and it aches like an open wound. At night the halls are filled with the quiet moans and cries of the grieving, trapped in nightmares they can't wake up from.
Chase thinks they all get sick of it, after a while.
At the end of the first month, Kaz comes back with two bags full of tequila and beer and whisky. No one asks how or where he got it; not even Chase protests as he cracks open the first bottle and sets down five glasses.
The first few rounds they choke down with matching grimaces, lips pursed and eyes squeezed tight as they fight not to spit the alcohol back up. It burns as it goes down, but it gets easier, after a while.
"I just—I can't stop…stop thinking about what happ'n'd," Kaz murmurs, breaking the silence two hours in. Their tongues are looser, minds hazy. Kaz barely has the energy to refill his glass as he talks. "I dream about—about the bodies we found 'nd- 'nd the bodies we didn' find.
"'m sick of dreamin' of corpses."
"I…" Skylar begins in the quiet that follows. She swallows thickly, avoiding everyone's eyes, fingers squeezed tight around her glass. She's trembling, but no one comments. "I still dream about the Annihilator. About how…how he made me do all those terrible things."
Oliver sits between them, silent as he looks at the lingering drops at the bottom of his glass. None of them expect him to speak, and he doesn't.
"It wasn't your fault, Sky," Kaz says, voice tired in a way that suggests they've had this conversation before. He has a hollow look on his face. "You couldn't've stopped it; none of you could."
Skylar's laugh is bitter. "That doesn't change what I did."
"What he made you do," Kaz says, no fight in his voice. His grief weighs him down, sapping all his strength and leaving him boneless. Chase doesn't think he could cry if he wanted to. "There was nothin' any of us could've done."
Skylar glares into her glass and doesn't say anything else.
Chase's tongue feels heavy in his mouth when he says, "I nearly killed my brother once." He feels the other's eyes on him at the admission, can feel their surprise as he forces himself to continue. "I… A mad scientist had hacked our bionic chips, could make us do anything he wan'ed. I only—I couldn' snap out've it, not till I was about to kill Leo. I still—I still haven't forgiven myself for it…or Douglas, for what he let happen. I don't…think I ever will, honestly." Bree rests a hand on his shoulder, fingers pressed comfortingly into his skin. No one understood him like Bree did; no one could.
"I hate my mom," Oliver whispers, face ashen. "I hate—I hate that, that I don't hate her. I still—still love 'er, y'know. She's, 'cause she's my mom, but I—" His voice cracks, eyes burning as a sob lodges in his throat. His hand spasms around the glass, and it shatters, the liquid seeping through his trembling fingers. He screams, more out of frustration than any physical pain, and flings the shards from his hand. He screams until his voice goes hoarse, hands digging into his sides as he hugs himself and cries.
"How could she do that," he whispers, eyes glassy as he stares at nothing. The penthouse falls silent as he cries, Skylar and Kaz instantly by his sides, hugging him close. Oliver barely seems to notice their touch. "She was my mom… How could she do that?"
Chase can only watch, not knowing what to do with himself. What can you even say to a guy whose mom turned out to be a supervillain that killed all his friends?
Then Bree speaks up, quiet at first, getting steadier as Oliver turns teary eyes to her.
"Our uncle used to keep us locked in the basement," she says. She sniffs, clearing her throat. "Kept us locked away—hidden—from the rest of the world." Bree smiles, lips thin and eyes hard as stone. It's a brittle thing, barely keeping back everything she wants to say. Chase knows it's been something she's been keeping inside for a long time. "We were created to be nothing more than weapons, me 'n' my brothers. We…we never would've gone to school, or, or had pizza or made friends or seen the fucking sun if Mr. Davenport hadn't've fucked up where he put the keypad." She's crying now, her brittle smile cracked, voice shaking but determined as she tosses back the rest of her drink. "I fucking hate him for it, sometimes. For the life he laid out for us. I hate that we didn't get a choice."
"Douglas wouldn't have given us much of a choice, either," Chase mutters, old resentments rising up. He's been tired for so, so long. "He would've turned us inta—inta super spies."
Kaz huffs out a dry laugh, shaking his head. "Man, guess all heroes have shitty parents."
They exchange wry looks, old pain and anger dancing in their eyes, before they all raise a glass—Oliver just grabs a half-empty bottle—and cheer. They cheer, and the penthouse feels a little bit more like home.
"I'll drink to that."
