A/N: This is a post-Ward fic! FFN doesn't seem to have a separate tag for Ward.
I looked away from the fire as the cars pulled up in a small convoy. Tattletale, Imp, Foil, Grue, and Parian exited the vehicles in a clattering of opening and closing doors, and headed towards our campfire.
Somewhat to my surprise, Tattletale more or less immediately made her way over to me. It still felt kind of odd to see her in civilian clothes. The outfit had clearly been chosen with some thought, but hung a bit uneasily on her, as if she wasn't quite comfortable out of costume.
She rubbed her arms through her light spring jacket as she stepped up to the fire. "Little colder than I thought it was going to be," she said.
I raised an eyebrow.
"What, your power doesn't do weather?"
Her lips quirked into a smile. "Nice to see you too."
I gestured around the gathering. "I'm flattered, but sure there's nobody else you'd rather be talking to besides a not-friend?"
"And miss my chance to needle my least favorite hero?"
Now that was more the Tattletale I'd come to expect.
"Retired hero, now, remember," I corrected her.
"Far be it from me to forget," she said. "It's just that the hero thing is so deeply imprinted into your personality."
Her gaze drifted to the fire. She was uncharacteristically quiet, seeming almost lost in thought for a moment.
She shook herself out of her reverie and looked back to me. "Good for you," she said, her voice soft. "I know I'm kind of a sarcastic bitch, so I have to specify that I do actually mean that. If anyone's earned a rest, it's you."
"You deserve one, too," I said. "Kenzie tells me you're right back on the treadmill."
She scowled at the mention of Kenzie's name. "I can't keep anything hidden from that little snoop. God, is this what it feels like for people when they want to shut me up?"
"Call it poetic justice."
"Whatever. Anyways, no need to worry your pretty little head over me. I'm fine. The work has to get done."
She looked tired.
"Yeah, I'm tired," she said. "I'm riding herd on the Chicken Tenders every day. You'd be tired too. It's just as rude to think it at me as it is to say it to me, by the way."
"Well, it's true. Are you getting enough sleep? After all the shit that's happened, you pretty much owe yourself a break."
"Thanks, hon, but I can take care of myself," she said. She moved a little closer to the fire, warming her hands. "An honest-to-god actual fire does feel nice. Beats all the garbage can ones I've seen." The fire cast flickering red-and-orange light over the shirt she wore, one of Parian's t-shirts printed with a colorful Brockton Bay watercolor design, similar to the one I had.
"Nice shirt," I said. "Hometown pride is a surprisingly earnest look on you."
"That's what the whole point here was, right? Brockton Bay reunion, talk about old times? Figured I might as well wear it."
"I like it," I said. "I've got a couple like it too. "
"Wow, the fashionista approves of my appearance for once? I'm honored."
"Do you really need to make even complimenting you difficult? C'mon. I like the shirt, I have the shirt. I have Brockton Bay pride too. It's cool."
"Thanks," she said, a bit more genuinely. She looked at me, and shook her head.
"If I told myself from back then that I'd end up trying to save the whole world with you, she'd have thought the Simurgh got to me," she said. She looked into the fire again, the dancing flames alternating light and shadow on her face. "Kind of surreal, isn't it?"
"Kind of, yeah," I agreed. "My past self might've been even more horrified than yours. But we were both dumb kids back then."
"You certainly were."
I rolled my eyes.
"You weren't exactly perfect yourself," I said.
Tattletale opened her mouth as if to fire off a retort, then thought for a moment.
"That's fair enough," she said. "We've both come a long way, I guess."
The fire crackled, throwing off sparks, as conversation continued around us.
"That feels like a pretty major understatement," I said. Tattletale snorted, and took a drink.
"A really fucking major understatement," she said.
"You know, for a long time I thought you hadn't really changed at all from the old days," I said.
"Gee, thanks."
"Didn't say I still think that. You have changed. Took me a while to realize it, but I can see it now."
"Well, you don't need me to tell you that you have too," she said. "You're actually almost kind of cool now, after you pulled that stick out of your ass."
"That's a bit of a backhanded compliment."
"Now who's making complimenting them difficult?"
We went back and forth for a while longer, until Crystal pulled me away to tell me the news about Amy.
After a few hours of festivities and conversation, darkness had thoroughly fallen, and the party had mostly wrapped up. The kids had left a while ago, shepherded by Rachel, Imp and Grue, and Crystal, Sveta, and most of the others had said their farewells and departed as well. Hannah, Dennis, Christopher, Tattletale, Missy, Byron, and myself sat around the fire.
"I guess it's time," Missy said. She smiled. "I'm glad we did this. Thank you all."
"It was a great night," I said.
"Worth coming back from the dead for," Dennis said with a grin. Missy just shook her head.
"Here's to Brockton Bay," Tattletale said, raising her beer in a final toast. "It may have been a shithole, but it was our shithole. We chewed up some real fucking bastards and spat them back out."
We toasted, threw back the rest of our drinks, then stood.
"I'll extinguish the fire," Byron said. "Better turn on your flashlights."
As blue motes gathered in the darkness, Tattletale turned to leave, flashlight in hand. I stepped up behind her and tapped her on the shoulder.
"Give me a ride home?" I asked.
"Seriously?" Tattletale asked, seeming surprised. "No Victoria Airlines?"
I nodded in the direction of Missy. She had looped her arm through Byron's, and leaned against him as he spread ice over the fire. "Don't feel like flying into the side of a building in the dark, and it's time for me to get out of Vista's hair." The two of them deserved to have a good night to themselves, and besides, it wasn't like Missy of all people would need any help getting home quickly.
Tattletale shrugged. "Ok, sure. But if I have to stop for gas, you're paying."
"You were going to stop anyways, weren't you? You are a child."
"A child holding the keys," she said, jangling them in front of me. "C'mon, let's go."
I waved to Missy. She and Byron stood near Dennis, Hannah, and Christopher, who were themselves readying to leave. "Tattletale and I are gonna head out," I said. "Thanks again. I'm really glad we did this, too."
Missy flashed me a quick wink and nod to express her gratitude at my deftly removing myself from the presence of her and Byron. I waved goodbye to the rest, then clambered into the passenger seat of Tattletale's car, which looked much the worse for wear post-Titans, as did most things in Gimel.
"This thing is beat to shit," I said. "You really can't afford a nicer car with your fees?"
"The way things are right now, I'm lucky to still have a car in this dumpster fire of a city," she said. "Not that you would understand, of course. Fucking flying."
With how much she liked having a nice car, driving this beater had to be getting on her nerves. I smiled at the thought.
"Why does that get handed out as a bonus to everybody besides Thinkers, anyways?" she said, in an aggrieved tone which indicated she'd clearly thought about this before. "Honestly, it's moronic. You already had your super-strength forcefield and your emotion aura, but you get flying too. Why shouldn't I be able to fly?"
She twisted the keys in the ignition. The engine coughed to life, the headlights flicked on, and she backed the car out and turned it around, bumping over the grassy field towards the road.
"It's okay to admit you're a bit jealous," I said. "I don't need your power to know that you thought flying with me was at least a little cool."
Tattletale opened her mouth, no doubt to fire off a pithy retort.
"Don't bother denying it, or we can talk about whether you also might have been maybe even a little nervous flying on invisible arms," I said, smiling.
She closed her mouth, and drove. She had to be fuming.
"Arguing with you was a lot more fun when I could just unload my power on you full bore," she complained. "If I keep going easy on you, you're going to get a very over-inflated opinion of yourself."
"Going soft?"
"I've been nothing but soft to you this entire time, Vicky, as I tried to explain to you over and over again."
The good-natured sniping, or at least good-natured by our standards, continued on until we pulled up outside of my apartment building.
"Alright, here we are," Tattletale said. "Now, kindly remove your discount Alexandria ass from my car, so I can get home and pass out."
"Thanks for the ride," I said. "Hey, do you want to meet up for breakfast tomorrow?" I held up a hand to forestall any complaints. "As not-friends. I've been meaning to ask your professional opinion on some of the material for my lectures. I would really like for this to turn into a permanent position, and the subject matter seems right up your alley."
She paused, hands on the wheel, seeming a little taken aback.
"Sure, why not," she said after a moment. "You know my regular analyst rates, right? Not cheap."
"Dream on."
She smirked, seeming satisfied that she'd scored the final point.
"I'll send you a place and time in the morning," I said. "Thanks for the ride." I hopped out of the car and shut the door.
"Night, hon," she said, and the car lurched back into motion. "I'll invoice you for the ride!" she yelled over her shoulder as she drove off into the darkness of the Gimel night.
I rolled my eyes and flipped her off.
A/N:
We're Not Friends is a complete story of roughly 24,000 words across 11 chapters, and will be published Mondays and Fridays until its conclusion.
As a fully canon-compliant story, this will be strictly a friendship fic. There will be a lot of fun Victoria and Lisa interactions for folks who enjoy the ship, but I want to calibrate expectations accordingly to avoid disappointment!
Also on the subject of expectations calibration, this is a pure slice-of-life story. Readers can expect a lot of verbal sparring between Lisa and Victoria, but there will be no action sequences.
Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy!