Max whistled cheerfully to himself as he opened the front door of the mansion. He'd spent all day out and about, looking for the perfect gift for Simon, and he'd been starting to worry that he'd never find anything. Fortunately, just when he'd been getting really discouraged, Maggie had shown up and saved the day. Simon was going to love the figurine.

"Is that you, Max?" Adrian's voice called from one of the living rooms.

"Yeah," Max called back, following the sound of his brother's voice until he found them, Adrian and Nova, cuddled up on the couch, watching a movie. "How come you guys are in here?" Max asked. Adrian and Nova usually hung out downstairs, in Adrian's section of the house.

"We wanted to make sure we were aware when people started coming in," Adrian replied. He grinned at Nova. "Didn't want to get too distracted."

Nova grinned back at him, and seemed to blush a little before kissing him. Max averted his eyes respectfully, but snuck a brief glance when the kiss seemed to last longer than just a second. When Max was younger, the concept of kissing had been a perplexing mystery, one he hadn't been too interested in solving because he figured it would never be something he'd be able to do. Now that he was getting older, though, and wasn't confined to the quarantine anymore… he couldn't help being a little bit curious.

"So where'd you go today?" Adrian asked once he and Nova were done kissing. "Over to the Tuckers'?"

Max shook his head. "I went shopping for a present for Pops." He held up the miniature family. "This is what I ended up getting."

Adrian and Nova both got up and came closer, marveling at the details. "Where'd you find this?" Nova wanted to know.

"Some pawn shop down on Troya Boulevard. August Pawn, I think it was called? Something like that. Technically I wasn't the one who found this. A girl helped me." He found himself grinning, realizing he was really excited to tell them about Maggie. He wasn't sure why. He'd gotten over his initial euphoria about meeting new people years ago. Other than the fact that she'd been helpful, his interactions with Maggie didn't stand out any more than his interactions with any of the other random people he'd talked to that day.

"A girl?" Adrian's eyes held a teasing sparkle. "What kind of girl?"

"A girl who used to be a Renegade," said Max, wishing he remembered more about her from back when he used to see her at Headquarters. He'd only ever seen her in passing, when he was watching the main lobby from his perch up in the glass quarantine. He'd always thought she was a little bit cute, despite the scowl she seemed to wear almost all the time. She'd seemed to have a talent for making people mad, too; Max could remember a few instances in which she'd been talking to people and they'd stormed off in a frustrated huff. Max had never known what any of the situations were about, but he'd always found them mildly entertaining.

Other than that, he hadn't known anything about her—her name, where she'd worked, what kind of powers she had. A few times he'd wanted to ask, but every time anyone had come to visit him they'd always gotten caught up talking about more interesting topics, and Max had never remembered his questions until he was alone again.

"Used to be?" Adrian questioned. "But not anymore?"

"I don't think so. I hadn't seen her in a couple years. She didn't tell me what she's doing now, though." Although she'd tried to be nonchalant about it, Max had a hunch that the omission of information had been very intentional.

"My guess is she's doing whatever she wants to be doing," said Nova approvingly. "Good for her. So she helped you find the present?"

"Uh-huh." Max nodded. "We were just talking a little bit, and I said I was looking for a gift for my dad, and she offered to help me find one. And then she found this!" He held the gift above his head triumphantly. "It's just perfect timing that she and I were in the shop at the same time. I'm really glad I met her."

"Was she cute?" Adrian wanted to know.

Max felt the corners of his mouth start to turn up, and he bit down on the inside of his mouth to keep his grin from growing too wide. "You'd probably think so," he told his brother. "She looked like Nova." This was only partially true. There'd been that moment, when he caught a glimpse of her from the corner of his eye, when he'd thought she was Nova, since all he'd seen had been her dark hair, short stature and small frame. Once he'd turned around and looked at her properly, though, he'd realized that her face was completely different.

"Like me?" Nova raised her eyebrows, amused. "My secret twin that no one knew I had? Nightmare Number Two?"

"Definitely not," Max laughed. "She was my age. And I guess she didn't look too much like you, only a little bit." He paused. "She was nice, though." They hadn't talked all that much, and yet there was something about her that Max had just felt drawn to. He couldn't put a finger on what it was.

"What's her name?" Adrian's voice still held that teasing tone.

"Maggie," Max replied, feeling strangely vulnerable saying her name out loud.

He was expecting an "Oooooh!" or a "Max and Maggie!" accompanied by a suggestive grin, but instead, Adrian's face took on a look of surprise. "Maggie? Magpie?"

"Magpie?" echoed Nova, her right hand instinctively clasping over the bracelet she wore on her left wrist.

Max shrugged. "I don't know. She didn't tell me her alias." Max had heard the name Magpie floating around Headquarters now and then, back when he lived in the quarantine, but he had never had any reason to put the name to a face. He hadn't heard the name in years now. "What were Magpie's powers?"

"I'm not sure what her official classification was, but she could sense valuable objects from a distance, and extricate them from piles of rubble using telekinesis," Adrian explained. "She used to be part of the scavenging missions, but I don't think I've seen her since before the Supernova."

"It's her," Max said definitively. "So you knew her before the Supernova?" He wasn't sure why this piece of news surprised him. Adrian had grown up moving freely around Headquarters, talking to everybody, going on patrols. Back then, the Renegades had been such an elite group, Adrian had probably known everybody in the Gatlon City branch. Even Max, by now, had come into contact with most of the regulars.

Maybe it wasn't so much surprise, as it was a slight twinge of jealousy that Adrian had known Maggie all those years Max was stuck in the quarantine.

Nova groaned. "We knew her, all right, and she's a little brat. If you're looking for a girlfriend, Max, you can do so much better."

"I'm not looking for a girlfriend!" Max protested, bristling not at the "girlfriend" comment, but at Nova's description of Magpie as a brat. "Maybe it's not the same girl. Maybe it's just someone with the same name."

"No, it probably is the same girl," Adrian countered. "But keep in mind, it's been over three years since any of us last saw her. She could've changed. And even if she hasn't…" he shrugged. "Poor choices don't necessarily make someone a bad person."

"Poor choices," grumbled Nova. "Max, did you have any valuables on you when you went into the pawn shop? Because if you did, they're probably gone by now."

Max frowned, trying to envision the helpful, somewhat awkward girl from the pawn shop as a sneaky thief. It didn't seem to fit. Besides, even if it was true, Nova had no right to talk. She herself had stolen none other than Ace Anarchy's helmet from the vault where it used to be stored, and used it to help Ace Anarchy himself come back to power.

Nova had had her reasons, of course. Max had learned the full story once he'd moved into the mansion with his family: Nova's mom, dad, and baby sister had been murdered when Nova was only six years old, and after her uncle Ace had rescued her, Nova had grown up her whole life blaming the Renegades for not showing up to stop the tragedy from happening. As it turned out, a Renegade had been there—Lady Indomitable, Adrian's mother. But she had been killed that night too, by Phobia, a villain who Adrian had unknowingly created using his power of Artwork Genesis. Max always shuddered at that part, knowing that his own guilt as a young child for absorbing other people's powers must be nothing compared to what Adrian must have felt when he learned that.

Nova had been part of the group of villains known as the Anarchists for ten years, plotting and scheming to take the Renegades down. Her perspective had flipped when she'd learned the truth about Adrian's mother—and that Ace Anarchy himself was the one who had orchestrated for her own family to be killed.

Still. Max couldn't help thinking that it was maybe a little hypocritical for her to be all upset over something like stealing.

The doorbell rang at that moment, and Max was glad for the excuse to put an end to the conversation. The three of them went over to answer the door, finding the entire Tucker family on the doorstep, accompanied by Oscar Silva and his mom. Max pushed aside his thoughts about Nova and Maggie, exchanging them for eagerness over what was to come. The first guests had arrived; it was time for the party.

Nova kept her eyes on Max as the party swung underway, watching him talk animatedly with Ruby's younger brothers, Sterling and Jade, or the Silver Snake and the Green Machine, as they'd insisted on being called ever since they became prodigies. It still made her heart swell with joy whenever she saw Max with his friends, since back when she'd first met him, he hadn't had any friends—at least none his own age, and none he could actually be in the same room with.

But what was up with his interest in Magpie? He hadn't said a whole lot about his encounter with her, but Nova could tell by the way he'd mentioned her and his expressions during the conversation that there was something there. Something that went beyond the mildly interesting incident of running into a former Renegade who helped him find a present for his dad.

Nova had disliked Magpie since the first time she'd met her, when Magpie had attempted to steal the delicate filigree bracelet Nova's father had made, his last creation before he was murdered. Actually, Magpie had succeeded in stealing it, without Nova's notice, but Adrian had caught her and made her return it. Since then, Magpie had always nursed a greedy obsession over Nova's bracelet, trying to steal it any chance she got. Nova had long thought that Adrian and the other Renegades were too easy on Magpie, chastising her for stealing but never meting out actual punishments.

It had been a while since she'd seen the girl. The last time Nova had come face-to-face with her had been a few months after the Supernova. A disabled civilian interested in potentially becoming part of the new government had specifically requested for Nova to come down to Beltway Avenue and hear out her ideas about how to improve Gatlon City, and at some point while Nova and the woman were sitting outside the woman's apartment building, Magpie had walked by, her ever-present scowl turning into a sneer when she saw Nova. She'd said something snide about Nova being Nightmare, and Nova had replied with an equally disparaging comment about Magpie's stealing, and the two of them had glared at each other for a long moment before Magpie had gone on her way.

And that was that. When the Renegades had re-formed after the Supernova, operating under a new set of rules that had been voted on by the populace—an idea spearheaded by Nova—Magpie hadn't been part of the new syndicate. Nova had given little thought to what the little brat might be doing with her life all this time.

A raucous round of applause interrupted her discomfited thoughts. Thunderbird's daughter Gia was standing on a surfboard, waves lapping at her feet as she juggled the small bean bags that were being tossed to her by Tsunami's son Kenji, who was forming them out of a pouch of pebbles strapped to his belt. Nova raised her eyebrows at Adrian. It didn't take much to figure out that he was responsible for the surfboard—although Tsunami was probably the one who'd contributed the water.

Adrian caught her eye and grinned. "Prodigy entertainment. Never a dull moment."

Nova smiled back at him. Even though they'd been dating for close to four years now, sometimes it was still incomprehensible how Adrian had wanted to be with her at all, after everything she'd done as Nightmare. Adrian was all about forgiveness and second chances.

So aren't you being a little unfair in disparaging Max's possible interest in Magpie? a little voice asked her.

Her eyes roved to Max again. He was laughing and clapping along with everybody else, now asking Adrian to draw a paddleboat. His eyes were so full of freedom and innocence. It was hard for Nova to think of Max getting into the world of girls and relationships—she had come to think of him as somewhat of a little brother, and still had a difficult time seeing him as the teenager he was rather than the child he'd been when she met him. But when Max did enter into a relationship, he deserved someone sweet and vivacious and friendly just like him—not Magpie.

"Guys, Hugh's going to be bringing out the cake in just a moment," Danna announced, stepping out from the kitchen.

The waves disappeared, the surfboard was propped up against the living room wall, and Nova joined everybody around the table, watching as Hugh presented a large chocolate sheet cake, adorned with an array of candles, in front of Simon. Singing along with everyone else, she realized that her worries about Magpie were silly. Just because Max had run into her once didn't mean that it would happen again, and just because he'd seemed a little bit interested in her didn't mean the interest would turn into anything. Chances were, Magpie would never be part of any of their lives again.