Athwart History (Closed)

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

“Can’t get better headquarters-or plain living-than Atlantis.” Jenna says with a nod. “The Tower was a terrible place. The more I learned about it, the more I saw, the worse it seemed. We’ll find Sarah and bring her here, too. She could probably use a place like this...and certainly seeing everyone happy.”

”Now all I have to do is get Marie down here. God knows that's about to be a trial as bad as anything I've faced to this point."

Lana frowned, tapping against the clipboard distractedly. Given what had happened the LAST time she’d suggested it-well, circumstances were different, weren’t they? She doesn’t like her in that pit, crippled and alone, not with Paul Marrane having killed so many of them already. She wasn’t a metahuman, but he might not know that. Besides-ever since she’d started to suspect the wheelchair and the self exile were penance, a manifestation of survivor’s guilt-well, she can’t help but want her out of it, even if she DID just go back to terrorizing the place.

“I mean, there’s got to be a corner for her somewhere, Laurent’s not going to turn her away just because she’s not a metahuman, right?” Jenna mused.

Lana shook her head. “Of course he wouldn’t. But Protagonist is obsessed with Samson. She would never leave it, much as she hates the place.”

Jenna blinked. Hated it? “Why was she-I mean...she was heroing…?”

“Taking her wrath out on the criminal element, more like. Protagonist wanted her pound of flesh, was vicious in her pursuit of it-Sam told us about a spouse or...someone important to her, anyway-someone she saw when she’d melded with her that first meeting, tried to see who had ‘summoned’ her. They’d been murdered, left for her to find. Shotgun blast to the chest and face, grisly. The murder made her snap, I guess. She became someone else when he died.”

Jenna was frowning, working through that.

“So. Yes, prying her out of that pit is probably beyond even you Elias, but here’s to hoping.”

“Let’s just get her down here to work on something, she went to the Coulee that one time, couple of days. Maybe another back up? And then keep...finding things that need doing...”

“Probably a better sell than immigrating.” Lana notes.

 

[Obuzeti]

"Maybe," Elias says doubtfully. "Dunno if she'd go for it twice in a row. I've got the Coulee on lockdown these days, and she'd just say that she can use that instead. Wouldn't be wrong, either."

He shrugs. "For me and Marie, being a hero wasn't about - doing good, not really. It helps, sure, but the work itself is raison d'être. It did not, does not, need to be justified. The conflict was more than what we did, it was who we were."

His teeth move on his lip, and his brow furrows. Maybe not so much anymore, these days. Whether the other two acknowledged it, Marie had come a long, long way from her days in her bunker refusing to so much as acknowledge human sentiment, or her own preference in anything. To both feel that, and communicate it to another, was a tremendous thing. He doubts anyone else really gets how far Marie stands from ordinary humans, even people like those here in Atlantis - that distance of the heart.

Elias gets it, but to be honest, it's not a thing he cares to explain.

"I'll think of something," he says, eventually, but he knows what he can give. "Poke her once in awhile on your communicators. If conversation or any kind of reply happens, I'll be surprised, but she could use the human connection and being reminded that she matters. I'd appreciate it."

~*~

It's late, or I'd be saying this in person. I know that doesn't matter to you, but I checked and Peter's stuff is gone. Since I remembered to check for it, I'm presuming he's somewhere curled up in your lair in a corner or something. I left breakfast stuff in the fridge there, point him at it when he wakes up.

It felt good to take Alphonse down. Most villains don't have that far to fall; I punch them, they go to jail or don't, they show up again for the next punching. Alphonse had all that shit built up and I knocked his tower over like it was made of Jenga blocks. It felt good, but I also feel kind of sick in reflection. I'd never really gotten a look at the place before - first time, they'd just laid the foundations. Big old white tower, no doors, no windows. Just lots of concrete, and doors to slam shut, and guns to point. He spent a long time finding prisoners to put in that prison block, and you were right; I let it happen. Bad shit happened to me first, but that doesn't excuse the responsibilities I had to prevent it in the first place. Everyone in there deserved better.

I'll probably carry that around with me for awhile, remembering what they looked like when they figured out they could go - not be free, not really. I don't think most of them believe that even now. Alphonse beat the freedom out of most of them. I imagine it'll be a life's work trying to reverse what he taught at the end of a boot heel, but I can't imagine anything being quite so worth it.

I'll probably have to be around Atlantis for the foreseeable future. To function as the leader around here - I hate writing that sentence but at least none of the kids have argued against it, or Lana or Jenna or something, and god forbid we try an election with basically a prison population. I guess they've heard my name in association with Sarah or something, most of them listen to me.

But that means I'll be spending less time running around on the surface taking care of shit that needs to get done. I know I've been big about giving the metahumans a fair deal, and that does deserve most of my attention - who else is going to give a shit about them? - but that doesn't mean I should just fuck off and forget about everyone else. That's wrong too. I don't get to curl up and sleep well at night just because I do one good thing each day.

You probably get that, honestly.

So I want to help Jenna put together a squad that she can take around on the surface, a hero team like ours used to be. Put some of the kids on it (I refuse to call them Wards. Fuck that word.), maybe a deputy squad or something. Let them go out and do some good upon the world. Not Cid's little televised busts of the local thugs, but like Jenna's minefields, or disaster recoveries. Things that matter. Things that give hope.

I probably won't be on the ground with them, but I'm just a distress call away, with these teleporter thingies. They ever need heads busted, I am there to deliver and protect. That's the most important part.

So I wanted to ask if you'd come down, help pick out and train some of the kids. Your Front did better than me and the girls ever did, when it comes to working as a team. We mostly got by on me being invincible and Sarah being unstoppable. You guys functioned as a unit and still walked away clean almost all the time. I'm not so stupid as to think some of that wasn't your influence.

And yeah, that's important, and I'd ask for that even without anything else. But I also just want to see you. I know this is supposed to be the metahuman sanctuary, but I didn't come here to leave you behind. That's fucked up. I won't do it.

So really I'd just like an excuse to see you on a regular basis, and I'll invent pretty good-sounding excuses like "train these people" and "put computers here", and shit like that. And all that's great. But if none of that ever needed to happen, I'd still want to come and see you, and have a chance to talk to you.

I love everyone down here, Marie, but sometimes I think you're the only one that gets it. Gets everything. You know what I mean. I don't want to ruin them with what I know and I think.

You probably get that too.

So I mean, you're my friend, is what I'm saying. And I'd appreciate if you stopped by tomorrow, or if not I'm probably going to stop by anyways and talk to or at you, or whatever, because you don't ask me to carry things for you, like all your hopes and dreams and expectations or whatever. You do that all yourself, and fuck anyone else in your way.

It's just really nice to have someone that doesn't put more weight on my shoulders. I breathe easier around you than anyone else.

Anyway that's my late night rambling piece. I dunno where I'm going with this. I just wanted you to know that you aren't forgotten, even now. Especially now, that things are finally going right.

I'll see you tomorrow, Marie. Take care.

- Elias

P.S.: typing this shit out on this little bitty communicator keypad was a pain in the ass. We're getting you an email address or something that doesn't cramp my fingers when I want to talk to you.

~*~

It was in the morning that Elias made a trip out to a grocery store up in Chicago - whatever the courts passed and the Senate declared, these were still his people, and no more likely to report or turn him down than Saint Paul - and then took a trip out to Powell. He puts most of the grocery bags in a big old ice chest and sets it off to the side. The sun's still starting to rise, so he leaves it by the door, knocks once, then ambles off and teleports away.

He was still Bedrock's kid, after all. He'd deserved better than what he got, too.

Then Elias is back to Atlantis, buried in the kitchen he's had set up. The metahuman quarter, as they'd decided to call it, looks like nothing so much as a large underwater suburb. Buildings of various sizes are linked together with tunnels and corridors lined with glass, giving a beautiful view of the sea floor and all the bioluminescent life that Vivienne has taken to painting with; bright reds and yellows, greens and blues, mixed together in a rolling landscape of sea plains. It looks like nothing earthly Elias has ever seen.

The domiciles proper are arranged four or five living spaces around a central hub, and those central hubs converge on his own building - it's larger, with an auditorium / training space attached and his own specific arrangements. His house isn't quite a copy of the Coulee, but the same basic arrangements are made: a downstairs kitchen attached to a wide living area, with private rooms up on the second floor and downstairs at the basement level. All the personal effects are mostly missing - he hasn't had time to go get his stuff from the Coulee, honestly - but Vivienne's done an excellent job of filling in the empty space with furniture, lighting effects, and wall artwork. It feels cozier than it is, really.

No one's up yet - a side effect of not really sleeping, Elias is always the first one up - so he sets to making pancakes, and waiting to see who comes to the siren call of batter and butter first. He whips up the mixture in the odd silence and tries not to think. There'll be things to do, soon enough.

But then Elias glances out the window at the things he's done, and he smiles anyway.

Alright, so this isn't so bad. Strange - but not bad.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Josephine Myers was back in full form-save the bit of plaster and bandaging over the bridge of her nose. She’d tracked down an iron one of the other ‘second wavers’ had thought to pack, and given her blazer and pants a smooth down, the blue silk tie she’d always liked so much. There’d been some quickly acquired pajamas doled out the night before, an assurance they wouldn’t be living out of suitcases for long (a lot of them didn’t even have those)-but she wasn’t going to be talking to anyone in her pajamas.

And so it was the young woman was striding down the glass corridors, sharply dressed in her tailored suit and with a determined, purposeful look to her. She wasn’t sporting the full hawk this morning-too much work and not enough hair product-and that left the dark skinned young woman with just a side swept undercut.

She knows exactly where she’s going, and who she wants to talk to-she’s set to post up outside the man’s door, wait until he gets up and goes to leave it if she has to. Meadow was off worrying about the kids and what life would look like for them down here-Josephine wants to know what it’s going to look like up top. She’s looking to see what arrangements could be made, what conditions to be swallowed-and if she’s willing to bother with any of it, or take the much harder route of finding her own way, period. She’d be a criminal in the states, but everywhere else, well…

She pauses as she draws closer to the center most hub and what she assumes is Adamant’s house, her determination to stay ‘on point’ stymieing a bit as she realizes she’s smelling batter of some kind, butter.

Last night he’d started grilling. Was he now making breakfast?

His door’s wide open, too.

Josephine gives a slightly suspicious glance around and even considers knocking-but this sure seemed intentional to her. Had to be. So, fuck it-she straightened her blue silk tie, mentally fell back on her self assurance-and walked right in.

~*~

The water is cold as it rains down on her head, sluices through shampoo and soap, icy tendrils over the nape of her neck, her spine. It wakes her up, makes her alert-but she still lets her mind drift, the only time she really lets herself to do so. She had slept well. Almost a full five hours of rest, dreamless and nearly comfortable. She doesn’t remember stirring during it, anyway. She’d offered the cot to Peter, initially-but he’d opted to make use of the futon padding Elias had dropped off forever ago-and had gone unused since he had. She’d also been sure to mention the fridge the big man had been keeping, not for the first time-but this time she’d pointed out food kept going to waste, and he’d eaten something before turning in. Both good things, but ultimately-he can’t stay down here. The pit was no place for anybody, let alone a kid-but there’d been enough big decisions for one day. They’d go over his options soon enough. She suspects where Sanderson ultimately settles would affect that-assuming the girl had actually left. Something to follow up on, if it mattered to him.

There’s that issue, and probably some distracting logistical particulars Elias or Lana might throw in her direction, easy enough objectives to mop up.

Everything else was just business. The United States government could lay down all the laws they wanted-it's always been immaterial to her anyway. Most of the scum were offshore committing their heinous acts-the ones that’d flourished in Rahab’s aftermath, gone mostly white collar. She’s kept tabs. Once things were organized, there’d be no shortage of missions for those that wanted them.

Cid and that gleaming compensation of his was no longer an obstacle. She has the more important of his resources, and soon-whatever data had just been stolen off of him. She’s looking forward to tearing into that, too-she’d copied it last night, and it’s been running through the containment laptop since. Honestly, with how well everything had gone, she didn’t even begrudge herself the rest.

Shit, she’s considering turning that dial to hot.

Marie grimaced and turned the water off. Best not to get too decadent.

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias glances up as Josephine walks in, and nods to her companionably. In contrast to her full business suit, he's wearing - what else? - plaid pajamas, another apron with a smartass saying on it (IT NEED SOME MILK), and house shoes. She looks ready to walk into a courtroom, while he looks like someone abducted him out of bed.

"Pancakes are almost ready - grab a seat," the Leaguer says, and flips some of the batter over to spread out the heat. "Jenna'll be in here soon as she catches a whiff, probably. Dunno who else will show up. I figure everybody will just glory in not having to get up in the morning and hang in their rooms 'till they get hungry."

He points up at a corner cabinet. "Set the table, at least some plates and glasses, I'm not like - super picky about shit. There's orange juice and milk and sweet tea in the fridge, but that's it. No one drinks soda at my meals. You'll damn well taste the food, not the carbonation."

Elias in private is a little less jocular, but has the same immediate and stunning presence. He's not precisely watching Josephine, but always has at least an ear turned in her direction as he casually moseys around the kitchen.

Brandon and Listrata are also tucked behind a table dragged towards a corner - Listrata is obnoxiously feeding Brandon scrambled eggs with all the intense concentration of a bomb disposal technician, and he's bearing it with a certain level of resigned indifference. He glances up as Elias speaks.

"Hey," he says, a wry quirk at the corner of his lips. "You lived."

The short sentence saves him from choking as Listrata immediately shoves more eggs into the exposed mouth hole. That turn, she turns and murder-stares at Josephine; nothing personal between them, but Liz's dander is at max extension, and it'll be days before she really calms down. She has the burning stare of a raptor and is blinking less than humans really should.

She nods, and then turns back to watching Brandon eat with cyclopean focus.

~*~

Peter wakes up later, and realizes, with a start, that he's still at Marie's bunker.

(if he'd been more awake, he'd have realized that he's calling her Marie in his head, not Protagonist).

He hadn't intended to stay, but with the monitor at hand he'd started collating all the information coming in from the media about the Tower break. Cid, at last report, was still unconscious, and CNN was theorizing that the event had been a mass jailbreak - though for some reason Elias is never mentioned by name. Security tapes had to have caught him, which makes the omission of him and any other League affiliates most curious.

He scrubs at his eyes, and glances around for Marie as settles beside his backpack, stuffs his raggedy comforter back into his backpack, and glances between the two varieties of fruit bar he'd managed to snatch from Cid's snack bar before he'd gotten out. They look - obnoxiously tasteless, very military. Peter's not afraid to eat things he doesn't like, but this looks dehydrated.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Josephine’s mouth sets in a frown. This was the second time she’s been set to talk business and been thrown off by his charismatic casualness. But you know what? Fuck it-he’d expediated a massive jailbreak smack on the heels of the Tower being confirmed as a prison for metahumans. If he wanted to make people breakfast, she wasn’t going to be annoying about it.

She sighed and shrugged out of her tailored suit jacket, started to roll her sleeves up a bit on her forearms. “Alright then, Mr. Halwell.”

"Hey. You lived."

“To my sister’s consternation, sure did.” Brandon still looks a little pale, and Listrata’s bandaged up where she’d been burned. There’s a reason she’d offered to help-it hadn’t been to upstage Jacqueline, it’d been to get the pair to Doc Bot as soon as possible, Brandon had looked like death warmed over. Beat to shit as she’d been, she couldn’t stomach sitting tight and leaving them to Jacqueline. Brandon had always seemed alright, which had made him a bit of an oddity for a Veteran Ward. Listrata was devoted to him, and probably the only reason she hadn’t blinded somebody with a spoon or something.

When Listrata turns one of those predatory stares on her, Josephine’s unnatural blue gaze meets it evenly, a slight defiant lift of her chin and a raised brow despite the plaster and bandaging on her own face. Sure, Listrata’s powers over the top trumped her own, and their squad had outperformed hers seven times out of ten-but they were all turncoats, now. None of that had any meaning anymore, the merit system had been done away with.

Same time, she’s decently sure Listrata’s insane. But hey-her own sister, her twin! had tried to cut her hands off by way of portal, so she can’t really talk. Listrata nods, and Josephine returns it. Good. No hard feelings here. The three of them were some of the few Vets that’d abandoned Alphonse, she’d kept track. Just a few, though. Lot of egotistical, vehement assholes made up the squads.

Josephine had been support on Squad 3, and she was the only one from it down here. Made sense-they too had been a bunch of vehement assholes. She hopes it left them in a serious lurch when she didn’t respond to the code red-she’d warned them they were getting lazy, depending on her portals for quick travel. Plus, Tectonic had sent them after Velocity-no thanks. Jenna seemed nice and all, stupidly wholesome-but Josephine would rather not find out what an angry one looked like, not when she could hit twenty thousand times in a blink or whatever.

Besides-there’s no real excuse for facism, she wasn’t going to fight to defend it when it came down to the actual thing-and to that end, the honor squad in particular and as a whole could choke on a bunch of dicks, especially Tectonic.

“Glad you’re both still kicking.” She says with another nod, and she means it. Those turrets opening up-Jesus. She’d probably have nightmares about that for a long time. Maybe the pair of them would, too.

She goes to wash her hands at the sink, glancing back to what Adamant’s doing. It’s so normal as to be absurd, and it occurs to her that she hasn’t really eaten in anything but a cafeteria for years. Last night’s underwater ‘picnic’ notwithstanding, of course.

“...so, you like to cook then, I take it?” Feeling him out some, less people around. Still weighing the man out. He’d swept her up in a hug, and promised not to leave her behind. Maybe it was childish-but that’d kinda...mattered. Her sister had just turned on her in full and viciously, and while they had had their differences for a long time, had been pit against each other the same as any other Ward…

Josephine’s right hand strayed to the bandaging across her nose before she shakes it off. Didn’t matter. It really doesn’t. They had made their choices.

She heads to the cabinet for those dishes. If he was set to make breakfast, least she could do was set the table as requested-and now she kinda wants to have it, honestly. Why the hell not-it’d been a rough few months. He’d said something about Jenna-Velocity. That had caught her attention. As a heroine in her own right, the speedster would be worth getting to know-Josephine had always been careful to duck her before-getting friendly would have been suspect. Now it’s not an issue-the opposite, really.

Alright, she’d definitely stay for breakfast.

“You going to have enough pancakes? I saw her put back at least seven hamburgers last night. Figured on a speedster having a high metabolism, but damn.”

~*~

Marie slid the metal door to the shower room open, wheeled out into the back side of her lair-the lights coming on to illuminate the covered motorcycles and the dusty work out equipment and padding, the still knocked over, torn punching bag and then the suit of mechanized armor Machinist had made for her once. She’d worn scrubs-something she was taking to more and more often, not wanting to subject either Peter or Elias to the nasty scars. She figured that was why the latter had bought the things, anyway. Her hair was still drying-and recently cut. Not the hacked off, uneven mess either-actually a proper, even haircut for the first time in years, symmetrical. Waste of time, maybe, but she hadn’t spent long on it, and letting it grow might not be the worst thing. She used to keep it long...an old carry over.

Jasper had sat on the counter and watched her do it-and it was...something. Something that was okay enough to allow herself, given how much she hated things to be uneven.

Jasper follows after her, hops onto the console as she comes to it. She pauses before wheeling up to it proper, the broken bodied vigilante frowning at him-or rather, the two snack bars.

She’d pointed out the little fridge the night before. It’s not even hers-Elias had put it down here, probably because she kept getting irritated with him messing with hers, putting shit in with her nutrient shakes. That, and space.

The kid probably just preferred to settle on whatever he’d brought with him rather than bother with stuff he hadn’t.

Without saying anything, Marie just herself wheels over to it and tries not to feel irritated, though why the irritation she can’t entirely place. She has work to do, of course-always work to do. But also, maybe, because she could never fucking cook, and eight years of not bothering can’t have helped with that. But shit-he deserved more than fucking fruit bars, those looked like military rations and he was skinny enough as it was.

“Fruit in here." She notes. "Orange juice. Told you, stuff just goes bad.”

Marie glances over at the full on electric stove Elias had brought in, then back at Peter. “...have a fire extinguisher, you want to try to cook.” Because of course that’s what she’d say. She wheels back again, looks him over-and then heads to her console decisively.

"Eat something." It didn't really sound like a request, because it mostly wasn't. She wasn't Sarah or Elias, with their baking and provisioning-she was just flat practical. Though...mentioning it at all was rather unprecedented.

Despite the disapproval shown for the basic military rations however, Marie popped the mini fridge at her workstation-and retrieved an unflavored nutrient shake for herself. If the hypocrisy occurs to her, she doesn't comment on it.

 

[Obuzeti]

"I have a degree in nutrition, in point of fact," Elias replies, as he begins to dish out pancakes on the plates that Jacqueline sets out. Bacon follows it, along with appetizer plates full of some kind of sliced fruit, what kind isn't immediately obvious. Whatever his other talents, Elias's pancakes are warm, fluffy, and free of burning, and the butter melts right onto them. "I do like feeding people. Fulfills a basic need - hard to get more ground floor to survival than food."

Brandon shrugs, his mouth momentarily unoccupied by food. "It worked for me."

Listrata pauses and considers this. "There were other factors involved."

Then before he can argue she shoves some bacon in his mouth instead.

Elias snickers at the interplay, then turns to fill Jacqueline's plate just the same. "I cannot fill Jenna's stomach unless I've had at least an hour to build up food. It's more like I just feed her continuously throughout the day. She doesn't slow down when her stomach fills up - she just burns it off as fuel. I want to see her make a jazzercise video sometime. Just one huge blur."

~*~

Peter glances up at Marie and frowns slightly - but he does it without further complaint or niggling, grabbing a pair of peaches. They're sweet and tangy, waking him up in an instant, and he cringes as some of the juice smears on his cheeks. He wipes at them with a sleeve, inconspicuously. "Sarah or Ellie usually cook," he says, voice creaky from sleep. "I never learned."

He glances over a list up on one monitor, reaches over to scroll down it. There's a list of names still out of contact; his ersatz sister's comes up on it. "Ellie still hasn't checked in?" he asks, then immediately pulls out his communicator to check in with his real family too, abruptly paranoid. There's a message redirected to it from his little sister, frantic with worry. His shoulders slump with relief and he settles to typing a response.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Might want to stop by soon. Fourteen or fifteen pies on the table.

Jenna blinked at the message on her smart watch blearily, then remembered the ‘family comm’ Marie had given her. She’d wisely passed it along to her father over her mom-but still, fifteen pies? Ehhh could be worse-the record was forty something, week of the SATs.

Of course, that wasn’t factoring in the kind of pies. Her mother only cooked from scratch, same as her lola. If it’s apple or blueberry or something, chocolate pie-

And they're pumpkin.

Jenna dropped the pillow back over her head with a groan.

Okay trip home, ASAP. Poor Daddy.

She’s sure there’s going to be an earful waiting for her, between the interview and then the whole...jailbreak that’d just happened, whether they’d mentioned her or not-but her mom was always having a panic attack about something-it was up to her and her old man to bring her down again. Perfectly normal routine, really.

The petite Filipina rolled out of bed and nearly tripped over her purple suitcase-something she’d made sure to grab last night before turning in. Would have been kinda...weird continuing to crash on a Coulee couch when the owner of said couch was chilling in Atlantis, after all. That and-she’d stayed on that couch to be where the action was, see who was coming and going, anticipating more heroes and friends and families-so if all that action was in Atlantis now, then it’s Atlantis she’d best start sleeping down in.

And speaking of sleeping-

“Ellie?” Jenna calls out as she exits into a shared living space-the little flat is beautiful, it really is-but it’s quiet, and maybe a bit too...fancy? Artistic? She’s not sure, and she’s also a little disappointed there’s no where to keep a pet shark.

But not nearly as disappointed as she is when no one answers back. The second bedroom in the domicile is still depressingly empty-though Jenna had hastily penned a ‘reserved’ sign for the door, so maybe she’d seen it and, typical Ellie-figured it was for someone else?

Her eyes flick to the large crystal wall at the front of the living room, out into the beautifully lit, aquarium sort of tunnel that served as the main path. One of those Atlantean Mothers were out there-former? What exactly did that mean, anyway?-with a parchment, standing in a special little alcove Jenna usually saw guards in, anywhere else she’s been in Atlantis.

She’d better ask.

~*~

News of the bit of...non hero education makes Josephine think a minute, thrown off but thoughtful-and then Brandon offers something up, and Listrata answers-and Josephine finds herself wondering just how the hell the two HAD met, actually.

Mr. Halwell dishes her up a plate, and Josephine settles into the same chair she’d draped her suit jacket over, an appreciative nod. “Shit, if she did one, it’d be a big craze all over again. People’d be drooling to brand and market it as something new.” Wasn’t the way Velocity worked though, was it? Nope, none of that.

She munched a bite of bacon and watched the butter melt into the steaming fluffy goodness, and suddenly-she’s hungry. It hadn’t been on her mind until this exact second, but she fucking is, and this looks fucking good, and the bite of bacon was exactly as salty and deliciously chewy with crunch as it looked.

“This isn’t what I came for.” Josephine notes, cutting out a bite of pancake with her fork. “But hell if it isn’t delicious.”

“Everything Elias cooks is delicious-and, hopefully, being shared with me?” Adamant in pajamas was one thing-he was in his own house, cooking breakfast-it’s still weirdly normal, but alright, even heroes have down time-but when she looks up at the sound of Velocity’s/Jenna Paige’s voice, it’s not the blue shimmering costume or even street clothes the heroine’s wearing-it’s ALSO pajamas, and not even dignified pajamas-s’mores. There are cartoon character, anthropomorphic marshmallows, chocolate bars, and graham crackers on the cotton capri pants she’s wearing, and a single assembled s’more on the light blue t-shirt with the words ‘S’more Fun’ in a frilly purple font.

Josephine ducks back and sideways a little to confirm that yes, there are matching slippers.

“What the hell-this is going to be some kind of hippie commune, isn’t it?”

The shorter woman pauses, then glances down. “...huh. You know, didn’t even occur to me to, you know, wear something else. Always in costume or pajamas, guess I just-anyway. Don’t pretend you’re not jealous.” Jenna grins, taking a seat and offering a wave to the other two veteran wards.

“Jealous.” Josephine is still a little thrown off. This girl was famous, and she’s wandering around a foreign, ancient kingdom in fucking kid’s clothes. “Of your pajamas.”

“Sure! Heck, my mom bought me these.”

“What.”

She has a pancake-no syrup, just the butter, and somehow with some fruit rolled up inside of it-in her fingers now, tapping with her pinkie at a smart phone that’d been in her other hand. She’s chewing, but Josephine had not seen her dish fruit, or roll the pancake up, or do-well, anything-just a sit and blur and now eating.

“See?” And she slides the phone over and, sure enough-a carbon copy of Jenna, just a little darker skinned maybe-was sporting the same damned pajamas, the mother and daughter pair apparently having preserved the occasion with a selfie.

Josephine doesn’t quite know what to say. This girl had taken down Rush, by herself. If the whispers among the senior Wards could be believed, Mindmelt. And then faced off with Paul Marrane and that one old school fire dude.

Well. Maybe she should have guessed-Velocity was also famous for saving people’s pets alongside their owners.

She knows it’s kinda..****de, but she’s curious-and swipes just a picture to the left-and sees ANOTHER pair of matching pajamas. She slides the phone back over, shrugging. “Cute.”

~*~

Marie doesn’t comment on it, but she’s appreciative when he opts for the peaches, no further noise required-or given. She feels better, for some reason.

"Ellie still hasn't checked in?"

Unfortunately, not all needs could be so practically dealt with as hunger could.

“Jenna made contact during the bust. She was rather...conflicted.” A fucking mess, more like. Marie hadn’t realized just how Sanderson was dividing her time-or cared, entirely. Staying in the Tower required no changes, no decisions-and apparently, that’d been the route the kid had opted for.

There’s a blinking green light on the console indicating a message had been left. Must have designated by the sender as low priority, or she would have woken up to an alert-and the only one who ever sends messages like that was Elias.

She pulls up his message and half reads it while her left hand taps away on the keyboard. And then the woman pauses mid tap, eyes narrowing a little on whatever she’s reading on the tablet-before making a concerted effort to leave it be and turn her attention to the question in full.

“Daybreak was missing entirely-possible she went to where she’s receiving care?”

On main quad monitor display, a series of audio logs pops up for the Coulee-the alert system/communicator she’s since learned was kept on the mantle. Marie has GPS data on Velocity, a teleporter use-the speedster had ported to the home, and when she hits play-it’s fairly obvious why.

There were two calls for Sanderson, one close to and one far from the listening device, and then a final slam of the door.

She chooses one an hour or so before it-and this time there’s no door slam, just dead silence...a rustle...and then paper being torn…?

Marie doesn’t know what to make of that. She checks the second list, the one that tracked teleporter use. Nothing, and the only ones that didn't signal were the ones loaded up on the three bird drones in the Serbian bunker and the one in the suit of Axiom's collar of his suit that dumped him down here, the only one capable of doing so.

Not much to go on, the sound of tearing paper. "We might check the Coulee again, otherwise-not sure. Your friend doesn't carry tech." Nothing she's tried to pass on through Jenna, and not Tower tech, either. Sanderson might be a coward, but she was also oddly clever, in a way.

He's messaging someone-probably his own family-and Marie takes a moment to glance back at the half read message sent to her own long digitally copied comm.

Because of course the big man would sit up and write her a book after a day like yesterday.

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias flicks a hand, dismissive. "I don't care about making money from it. I'm set for life, pretty much."

The Coulee itself had been an inheritance from a billionaire friend that had died early on the League's career - Patrick Mayhews, who'd been seriously injured in an attack from a villain that Elias had repaid in kind, some kind of name about dogs. Rottweiler? Panzerhund? Something like that. He'd died from complications due to his injuries, eventually, but had taken such a shine to the Danvers twins that he'd willed them the Coulee and a trust fund "sufficient to care for it unto perpetuity". It had done its work, though he imagined that fund would be seized now.

The Coulee, though, was his. Board it up all they liked, no one was opening its doors without him or Machinist raised from the dead.

Whatever Josephine's purpose is, she'll get to it eventually. He shrugs and leans over to toss a one-armed hug around Jenna's shoulders, then returns to the stove, already starting a second batch of everything. "Yeah, dig in, y'all. I mean to catch everybody today at some point, figure out if we have any medical needs or what have you. Be awkward if somebody forgot to bring their insulin or something."

He turns an eye on Jacqueline. "Anyways, me and Jenna are pretty much either in work clothes or lounging around at home, so yeah. Pajamas or the uniform. Not much in between, most of the time."

"Never just go to the grocery store?" Brandon inquires, a little dry.

Elias shrugs. "Well, my suit, such as it is, isn't that far off from regular dude wear. I mean, the jacket's kind of seasonal, but I can just toss it over a shoulder if I get hot."

"Do you?" Brandon asks, with a raised eyebrow."

"No."

Elias doesn't look inclined to expand, so Brandon shrugs and turns to Jenna instead. "Hey. I -"

Listrata growls at him - an actual, verbal growl - and tries to shove more pancake in his mouth. He catches her wrist and a moment of mutual staring ensues, after which he sets their hands on the table together. Her fingers intertwine with Brandon's, and she stares at Jenna with junkyard dog resentment. "Thanks for your help," Brandon continues. "Not so much for us - we were fine - but some people around the Tower needed your help. It's good they got it."

Some of the tension seeps out of his raven-haired paramour, and she shifts a little in her seat. His thumb passes over her knuckles once, and she settles.

~*~

Peter's mouth purses, but he nods. The last thing Ellie needed is to be dragged in like a cat. She's as much a survivor as he is, if a lot more miserable in the process. If nothing else, she'll check around for him eventually. In the meantime, there are other problems he can solve.

"Cid runs his insurance through a private firm. I can try to track the prescriptions he was being given for Sarah, but I don't know if that'll lead me to where she is," Peter answers, his mind clicking into motion at the thought of something he can actually work towards.

He pauses for a long moment, brain whirring as he tries to think of some other unique factor he could use to trace Sarah. " . . . What about Sarah's communicator? Did you ever have the chance to open that one up? Is there a way to trace it?"

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Jenna appreciates the hug, and despite the new surroundings, the massive changes-it’s all familiar, and she’s grateful for that. Plus...she’s pretty sure a lot of those in this ‘new’ generation hadn’t really experienced much in the way of a calm home life-so Elias was that much extra a life saver.

Also, for real, she can’t believe they’d really busted the Tower open, gotten everyone who wanted out of there somewhere safe. For so many reasons.

She swallows, already halfway through her breakfast. “Could pass around a survey maybe, see what folks need...most of the ones I spirited off didn’t get to pack.” Man-logistics. It was a lot of people all of a sudden, and a lot of them kids. She can’t go back to the Tower to retrieve things, either-not without Marie somehow probably finding out, and then killing her.

Besides. Just stuff.

Elias backs her up about the pajamas, and Josephine remains somewhat dubious-but now, at least, some amusement filters in as Brandon-is it Brandon? Jenna’s almost sure it’s Brandon-speaks up.

Jenna can’t help but snicker at the end result of that line of questioning-before Brandon turns his attention to her-which apparently pisses the girlfriend feeding him off, though for which reason Jenna’s not immediately sure-but holy shit. Her eyes flick to Josephine, who doesn’t seem all that surprised-just offers the barest hints of a shrug.

“I was just happy to finally be able to do something.” Jenna says with a nod, glad to see her settle down a bit, with him. Jenna’s not sure what that was about, but the speedster sticks to the easy going and accepting friendliness she’s employed pretty much her entire life-she’s no threat. Not a rival for anybody’s boyfriend, and definitely not set against anyone, down here.

She’s determined to get to know everyone, at least a little, down here.

“And you know, I hear what you’re saying about not having it as bad-but I don’t think anyone had it all that good in that place either. So...I’m glad you three came down.” Yeah, the ivory building had kinda been the worst. She hadn't realized it until Cid had tried to lock her up there, but it really had been. Friendly competition was was one thing, but the cliques and rivalries and just-well.

New horizons.

“...so uh, and I’m really sorry-but maybe a round of friendly introductions? I’ve seen you guys, but we’ve never really-talked.” Because maybe it’s NOT Brandon, maybe it’s Brian-Jenna offers an apologetic smile. “I’m uh, Jenna.”

Josephine snorts and then immediately winces, tipping her head back with an amused smirk as she finishes chewing her fruit. Alright, sure-maybe she has a point, but...fame is still an awkward kind of thing she’s learning to handle, even all this time later. Josephine echoes the thought.

“Yeah, that’s wishful thinking. Even if you weren’t famous, you’ve been on Cid’s shitlist since you left against orders.”

Jenna supposes she has a point. “Eh, his bad for essentially trapping me there. So...you’re obviously not Jacqueline.” Back on introductions, darn it-Tyler had growled at the potty mouthed lady just before she’d dropped the c word, so obviously this wasn’t her-but the resemblance was uncanny. They were identical, ‘cept for how they wore their hair and clothes, the different but still bright eye colors. Same dark skin color with a cool coal undertone, same facial shape, same height, same posture, same voice-same just about everything. Abilities too, she thinks? “You’re the other one, miss…?”

“Josephine. Josephine Myers, and you bet your ass I’m not Jaq.” She’s seems prideful but not irritated, though Jenna belatedly realized she’d just kinda put her foot in her mouth, calling her ‘the other one’. Oops.

“And yeah, we didn’t talk before. I was supposedly keeping my nose clean on Squad 3, down with the regime as much as she was.”

“But not?”

“Nope. That’s what I wanted to talk about, actually.” Unnatural blue eyes flick to Elias at the stove, then back. “Before you guys showed up and expedited things, some like minded friends and I, we were meeting in secret. They made it illegal since, but we had been planning to leave and...well, hero. Really hero. Like you, and like everybody used to do before the Tower.”

“Really?” Jenna’s suitably impressed-and gets it. She’s fighting the Good Fight, after all-she’s compelled. She decides she likes Josephine. There’s a business but also a kind of personable, ironic twist to her-and apparently, she’d been resisting Cid on the inside, organizing. That took guts, and a level of finesse she doesn’t think she could pull off, herself. “And it’s not going to -stay- illegal, it can’t-but how many of you are there?”

~*~

“There’s nine of us, counting me.” Velocity was listening. A good sign, she thinks. Josephine continues. “We didn’t have a name or anything-Tectonic and some other honchos had just enough wind of us to be looking for us, and either he or my sister started calling us the Jailbirds. Sorta stuck, I guess.”

She turned towards Mr. Halwell again. “That’s who dropped in through my portals to help, in the lobby.”

“Yeah but...why?”

Josephine turned back to Jenna with a raised brow. “What do you mean, ‘why?’ We weren’t going to get a better opportunity than Velocity and Adamant showing up.”

“No, I mean-I was spiriting everybody out to teleport, you know? Why’d you head down, instead of just holding the card up?”

Josephine considers that with a frown, but only for a moment. “Because...it wasn’t just about leaving.” She starts off slowly but gains traction, surety. “It was about standing up to El-no, Alphonse-” She’s more than a little gleeful in his having been dressed down, though she tries not to show it too much. “-and the whole fucked power structure he created. We weren’t soldiers of his, and...that’s where we proved it. Irreversibly.”

She drummed her fingers against the table, and she’s not sure Jenna gets that, entirely. But then again, how could she, really? Velocity had just sprung up out of nowhere overnight, never been under anybody’s thumb. Her mom was buying her matching kids pajamas, for fuck’s sake.

But...she does get standing up to bullies, she’s dead certain of that. So...maybe she does.

Josephine exhales. “We kinda got beat to shit though. Wasn’t expecting the turrets going nuts, and then, well-Tectonic’s overpowered, we all knew it’d be dicey once he entered the fray.” She scowls.

“And you had to fight your sister?” Jenna gestures to her own nose, and Josephine frowns. “I saw you before I dumped her off in the city, after she uh, expressed her desire to not to come with us. Looked kinda rough.”

Another glance between the two, then Brandon and Listrata, and then her plate. “...yeah. My self appointed task was to keep her busy. Our powerset isn’t really-I mean, we’re support, but Jaq can get...creative.” She’s not sure why she’s getting into this with a stranger, exactly-she looks at her right hand, splays her fingers before relaxing them back and smoothing them over her pantleg.

Bitch tried to remove her hands.

“...look, she’s fucked up and we have our differences, but she’s still my sister. I wasn’t trying to hurt her, not really.” She shrugged it off. “But she’s up there, and I’m down here introducing myself proper to the two of you. And, letting you know I got a band of merry men and women looking to do more-that we’re going to do more-and wondering if that’s something on the table down here or not.”

~*~

Samson, Marie’s Lair:

It’s quiet for several moments as Peter responds to something and she reads-and then rereads-the communication from Elias. It’s one of the reasons she can tolerate-no, appreciate-the boy. He doesn’t require pointless noise, doesn’t find quiet uncomfortable.

Which, honestly, is something of a relief.

This letter though...she doesn't know what to do with it. It's...good? It's a good letter...message...thing. But now she IS uncomfortable, out of sorts. Unforgotten, sure-like the soup, she was being bothered with, and not entirely out of charity. As ever, Elias claims to derive something from her company. Point blank states he’d like to see her, and not just once a year. That it helps him, somehow.Maybe he’s mostly projecting, but as she reads back over, she can’t entirely find where. Most of what he says is the truth. She does get it. And she doesn’t lean on him in the way others did, needed to.

Self sufficiency is indeed one of her strengths, though people didn’t always see it as much of a boon, for some reason.

He just...shines, and the letter is more evidence of that-all that he’s taken on, this monumental task of leadership after exodus... he’s right-if not him, who else? It was always going to be him. Delayed, yes, but he’d come back, and he’d made things right, just as she’d known he would.

She hadn’t really counted on being friends though. Not really. She had definitely...lost herself for awhile, there. He hadn’t left her to that, and painful as it’d been at the time it was definitely for the best-what kind of shit mentor would that shell of Protagonist have been? Granted, she’d never figured on having to fill that sort of role, there just wasn’t anyone better to do so, right now.

”Cid runs his insurance through a private firm. I can try to track the prescriptions he was being given for Sarah, but I don’t know if that’ll lead me to where she is.”

Marie listens to this, affording Peter an approving nod. She waits, lets him think it through further before she offers up anything. Learning opportunities come and go...and it furthers her understanding of how his mind works on top of that. Maybe she shouldn’t consider it mentoring-she doesn’t, half of the time. She’s just providing him the tools bit by bit, then sitting back and watching what he does with them.

About Elias-she’s feels kind of...ashamed, having been so very certain he’d disappear down there, that he might indeed abandon hero matters altogether, the surface world and its people, the War...her. He still might, someday-and she honestly couldn’t blame him if he did-but it wasn't his intent, not right now.

They are friends. She will accept this, and she had already resolved to attempt being one worth a damn-so she can’t just ignore the message, or his request, respond with a flat and unexplained ‘no’. She also can’t go down there, not in a mask capacity. She doesn't need to, for one-she has all the data and hero profiles she needs this exact second, and eyes down there for more. That wasn’t entirely the point of the request however, he’d said so.

So she needed to explain, and needed to...she doesn’t know. Respond with something, she just doesn’t know what. She’s no better with messages than she was talking, but at least the former allowed for time to think. And her being bad at things wasn’t enough of an excuse anymore, she’d decided that too already.

It’s just that he’d poured so much into his letter-and then, perhaps unwisely, given it over to her unworthy hands. Fuck.

Marie pulled up a blank response window. The blinking cursor makes her just as uneasy, but then Peter speaks and for once-she’s glad to procrastinate on something.

He’s hit on a good point, and she sets the tablet aside, pleased with the question. Time to pull back a little more of the curtain.

“The communicators themselves-our new ones, and the old League ones-are running through systems I took over, rebased here. Even before that, though-had a way to track general locations, pings off the satellite.”

She gets to work on the keyboard. “I’m granting you access to that and the directory, but it’s passcoded on top of that.” She fixed the code to the broad one she used on more minor things. “Use the usual one, then come up with one unique to anything else you’re using on other programs.”

Four of the centermost monitors formed into one display, a world map. “You can filter by frequency...but most of the ones in the directory are no longer active. When in Atlantis, here, or a few other former secret bases...frequencies are actually working on a relay. The signals picked up by the satellite are actually from a relay.”

Sarah’s is memorized, but she doesn’t offer it up-wanting him to find it in the directory, see that layout.

 

[Obuzeti]

Brandon's eyes flick over to Listrata. There's another moment of silent communion - they're in sync on such a deep level it's a little spooky - and then he glances back to Jenna. "We owe you one," he says, with a shrug. "You, Elias, in particular. We were both in a bad way before you came along. And you did good, Jenna, but we do not owe you. So consider this thanks for services rendered."

Elias raises an eyebrow, but rather than demur, just nods. "I'll keep that in mind."

Listrata nods once, sharp as her eyes, and then pulls out, of all things, some kind of hair styling magazine and starts flipping through it, though given the burned-off tangle the ends of her hair had become, perhaps it's not so surprising. The complex knots and weaves she'd worked into it are no longer viable, but there's a range of short hair styles she's flipping through and eyeing judiciously.

"Anyways, introductions are good," Brandon says, relaxing into his chair now that his mouth isn't in danger of sudden occupation by culinary goods. "I'm Brandon Hayes. Pennsylvania boy. And this is my partner, Listrata. We we Vets, but to be honest that's more just because we'd have been in jail otherwise. Part of the bargain we took on getting into the Tower was doing Cid's dirty work. It was the best option."

Listrata snorts. "I liked the power," she says, bald and blunt.

Brandon offers her a faint smile, which fades as he turns back to Jenna. "Eh, that's true. No offense, Josephine, but in the choice between being a Veteran and getting the shit kicked out of us on a daily basis, it wasn't a hard choice."

Even still, with Josephine laying out Cid's crimes, the foundations of her Jailbirds and the reason they had rebelled, and the unstated abuse she'd endured at her sister's hands - their enmity was infamous - Brandon's eyes don't flicker with pity or remorse, and Listrata doesn't grant her even so much as a look up from her shampoos and conditioners.

"Whatever you needed to do," Listrata says, as much absolution as dismissal.

"Alright then," Elias says, clapping his hands. The meaty shock of air makes Listrata jump and shoot him a dark look, which the big man completely ignores. "I'm pretty sure you guys were just talking about each other, but I'm feeling left out. So I'm Elias Halwell. I'm part of the League of Heroes."

Present tense. Brandon gives him a sharp look, which the cook also ignores. "Josephine, your thinking is pretty much in line with mine - too many of you have put yourselves on the line for the sake of the good fight to sit around here on the ocean floor and do nothing. So - this is all preliminary, mind you, I'm just tossing ideas around - I've been thinking about checking around with the Wards, and seeing if any of them would want to join Jenna on her daily hero'ing, instead of it being a solo act."

~*~

Peter nods, tongue flickering behind his lips as he gets to work on the new access Marie provides him - aware that this is probably the deepest Marie's ever let anyone else into her own systems, the preparation and care she has to take to do the work she does. The thought of failure doesn't even enter his mind.

But then, the signal of the communicator he comes up with from Marie's tables overlays directly a major radio tower, KL-12, posted out somewhere in New Zealand of all places. He stares at that for a moment, then gestures Marie over.

"Sarah's communicator is returning a ping in New Zealand, on a radio tower out there," he says, hesitant. "You said that would happen if it couldn't relay exact coordinates - but that's the only radio tower in the Pacific Island group, so I guess it could be returning a signal from any of the uninhabited islands in that area, since it would technically be the closest."

Frustration darts across Peter's face. " . . . there's about four hundred miles of island and open water she could be in, before the reach of the next major relay."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

“Sweet, we can be friends then.” Jenna agrees in a casual breeze, not even a question. She’s happily rolling up-at normal speed-her second pancake around the rest of her fruit, most of which she’d popped into her mouth already. She’s thoughtful as the pair continue-chewing on her breakfast as Brandon speaks and Listrata occasionally interjects.

She’s surprised to hear the admittance, kind of-but maybe not. She doesn’t know where either of the former Wards come from-just what situation she’d found them in.

The Tower and the power structure within had been totally fucked, so...she can’t hold much of anything against anyone who had survived any span of time within that place. They were down here, now. Whatever their reasons, they’d come to Atlantis and thrown in with everyone who had done the same, and the bullying, assbackwards system of merit and privileges and all that jazz-fake military discipline-that was gone.

New start, equal footing.

Judging by the bit of bristle to Josephine’s shoulders however, that might not be the most easy of things for everyone else to swallow. Jenna was about to say something to her when she catches movement-and then Elias claps.

~*~

The blue haired woman’s attention flits to Elias without so much as a jump-and she notes that Jenna’s does too, though the speedster was much more amused, even cheered when he mentions having felt left out.

Josephine meanwhile nearly cuts a crack about everyone fucking knowing who he was-but there’s something so damned earnest about it she can’t, even with her irritation at the bold declaration of Listrata’s over there. He also said ‘I am’ part of, not that he -was- part of the League-and shit, she’d caught a bit of a bootlegged broadcast of Jenna’s interview, she’d used the League in the present tense too. She’s still working that out same as Brandon was when the big man turned his attention on her-and talks to her like the goddamned adult she was.

It’s not entirely what she expected. She sits up a little straighter and the last bits of her bristle melted away-a flicker of pride, and then pleased, pleasantly surprised acceptance of so easy an offer, even a ‘preliminary’ one.

She had been 99% sure there’d be some kind of fucking hoop to jump through-or thirty of them. And while she’s sure it’s still not a ‘cut loose and go’ sort of deal, it’s still something.

The tall young woman glanced back at the pajama’d Velocity, who was watching them over the lip of her orange juice glass. “Toldja all last night-you still want to hero, welp-you know some folks.” And she grinned one of those trademarked grins before taking a drink.

Josephine had, honestly, expected a lot more negotiating, wheedling, and ‘deals with the devil’ to consider. And there might still be some of those, but for the right now-she settled back in her chair, poked her fork through another cut of pancake. “...well. Preliminary or not, it’s good to hear you talking that way, Mr. Halwell, Miss Paige.”

It really was. Josephine popped the bite past her lips, and relaxed a little, now that she knew heavy duty convincing wasn’t required.

Maybe Atlantis was something to hold on to, after all.

~*~

Marie studies the map briefly, but nothing strikes her about that part of the world in general-a blank spot in her prior dealings.

“Could be worse.” She says, somewhat pointlessly-it’s true, it could be worse, but there’s not point saying it. It’s the frustration that had darted across the boy’s face, maybe, that has her making noise. The fact they were now at zero for two on the locations of Association VIPs important to him.

Four hundred miles…what’s more-New Zealand? Sarah Danvers had willingly left not just the country her ‘kids’ were in after losing two of them- but the hemisphere? If she hadn’t, though, why was her old comm there? Marie doubted Cid had any reason or capability to thoughtfully pack a bag of trinkets.

Maybe Danvers hadn’t voluntarily set out to end up in New Zealand. Maybe she’d gone to a hospital stateside and been sedated, and then...

Marie internally grimaces. She remembers waking up from the trauma turned medicinally induced coma, how fogged and confused she’d been, how hard she had had to fight to stay awake, stay aware, claw even a little bit of thought to herself...

“Give Cid’s old frequency a search, too. As for Daybreak...we have satellite imagery, drone flyovers, Velocity...tools to start the search, gather more data. We’ll find her.” Marie gives a firm nod, a backwards wheel turn to center herself at her keyboard.

His sake, Elias’-and then Danvers’ own. Daybreak had suffered enough for her crimes, whatever she had once held them to be-Marie wouldn't leave her to her abusive husband and chemical imprisonment, if that's indeed what was transpiring on some distant shore.

 

[Obuzeti]

"I have no concept of what I'd do without this," Elias replies, deeply honest. He reaches up and runs a hand through his hair, the brown locks trickling through his fingers as he blows out a breath. He looks the most - ordinary, out of everyone at the table, oddly enough. Brandon and Listrata yet still wear their Veteran uniforms, dinged and charred from the battle the day before, Jacqueline is a walking billboard, and Jenna's diminutive form vibrates with the energy locked instead, occasionally blurring as she goes for the syrup. The only hint that anything is off about him is his bigness, a quality not all physical, despite standing a head taller and with shoulders inches wider than anyone else in the room. "I've been a hero all my life, Josephine. Quite literally, as long as I remember, I've been chasing crooks and villains."

He turns and pulls out a chair, seating himself at the table beside Jenna, though he doesn't put together a plate for himself yet. Instead, he leans back in the chair and gives Josephine a frank look. His seat creaks alarmingly. "Before about, maybe, eight months ago, I was still puttering around in Indiana, Chicago, doing what I could. Then Jenna came up to poke at me, and all this set in motion. I think now I'll probably be a little too busy making sure everyone's provided for and heard, down here."

Brandon's eyebrows draw down. The omnipresent humor drains. "You were still active all this time?"

"Yep," Elias says, pouring himself some orange juice. "Just less flashy about it."

He shakes his head and glances at Listrata, who is already watching him. There's another wordless exchange, then she shrugs and goes back to her pancakes. "Hindsight is twenty-twenty, I guess," he says, chagrined, and takes a bite of his own breakfast.

That hadn't been how Cid phrased it. In fact, Cid had failed to mention Adamant at all when he first came on board, and later referred to Adamant only by inference and as a criminal. Whatever news had passed into the Tower had only reinforced that image, disconnected as it was from what he knew from outside.

Too late to change it, now.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

”I have no concept of what I’d do without this,”

Jenna glances up. It’s not what he says-she might not have thought about it much just on that-it’s how he says it, and that mention of ‘as long as he can remember’. He’d said something once before, kinda, when they’d all gotten to talking about camping the one time. The speedster offers up a quieter smile-then goes about making him a plate from the various piles of foodstuffs instead. Brandon’s surprise doesn’t shock her-things had been quiet in general on hero activity aside from the Tower’s press releases. She hadn’t even hit the national news until she’d managed to best and bring in Rush.

And within the Tower itself, well-everyone had acted like he had gone off the deep end and half vanished. That’s why she’d sought him out-she just couldn’t believe it. Adamant, crazy? No way-and she’d gone to find out, meeting not just an esteemed hero of her childhood-but a new friend.

Providence, right? Jenna drew a syrup smiley face on his pancakes and slid the plate over.

~*~

This was news to Josephine, too. She’s not quite as surprised, though.

“Like any good cult leader, Alphonse dressed himself up nice painted it as if he and the Tower were our only salvation-but he’s a tyrannical dictator.” There’s a bit of an extra glow to the young woman’s electric blue eyes, no small amount of intensity to the words and her expression as she speaks.

“Strictly controlling information is a dictator’s calling card-because it’s information that topples regimes like his.” Josephine rolled the sleeves to her button up back down, disgruntled just thinking about it. She’s glad she’s the hell out of there. “But, that’s all rehashing moot bullshit, right? You showed everybody what his place was.” She’s not sure she’ll ever entirely get over that.

She pushed back her seat and retrieved her suit jacket. Listrata’s looking over hairstyles, and of all the things to have in common with somebody...but hey, they all had to have a weakness, right? Maybe Listrata’s, like hers, was hair. Bit of fashion.

Looking at it from that point of view, she could feel for the other woman some, having her hair burnt to hell like that. Jaq had broken her nose and that’d hurt like hell, but better than that than her hair, crazy as Josephine’s aware it sounds. The chill humidity down here though…

Relaxing it had taken a lot of time and chemicals, perks she’d earned pretending to be a good little soldier-but the humidity down here wasn’t doing it any favors-it’ll get kinky again, so she’ll probably have to figure something out.

The loss of her signature hairstyle was a small price to pay for finally, finally being out of that Tower, out from under Cid’s thumb, her sister’s thumb. At least the former she hadn’t had to see all that much. The latter had taken a lot more of her pride to slave away under. But that’s all done and hair could just be a...thing rather than a much needed bit of ‘self care’. Things can just be...fucking normal, or as normal as living under the ocean could be anyway.

You know. When she’s not eventually up top, finally making something of herself and her powers. Speaking of-

“Heroing starts at home, right? I can start going around, see what people need. Do a bit of the legwork for you, at least.” Her comrades are all mostly healing up, still. Shit, she’s still recovering from her own tumble with Jaq.

“I gotta hit the surface for a beat.” Jenna adds, already at the sink to start on dishes.

~*~

Sometime later, a message came through Elias’ comm.

PROTAGONIST:

Can't really make that trip, but should have time enough to talk, later.

That was it. Compared to his much longer letter, it wasn’t much. On its own it’s not much. It had certainly warranted more response than one contraction and eleven words.

As if the stoic woman thought as such but couldn’t quite muster up more, a second message came through several beats later.

Would make time even if there wasn’t any. See you then.

 

[Obuzeti]

"Not around kids or over anyone else, that's for damn sure," Elias agrees, not quite humorous about it. He's not really comfortable making what he did to Alphonse into a joke, though that's probably how the Wards will come at it. He's more aware that he had completely emasculated the other man, and that's a new line for him to be treading. Kill a man, sure, but cut his legs out from beneath him and leave him to suffer? That's a new one.

Then again, it wasn't like killing Cid outright had been an option, either. All he had were bad choices.

"They'd be more willing to talk to you than me," Elias says with a grateful nod. "I try to be approachable, but that ain't something any of you are used to. Let me know what people need, Josephine, and I'll get on it. Grab what you want, people, I'm not likely to be back in the kitchen today. Too much to do."

~*~

The teleporter spits and sparks about a half-hour later, dumping Elias outside Marie's warehouse entrance. He stretches and ambles towards the elevator, letting it take the long seconds to kick in as he organizes his thoughts. He could probably teleport into the bunker directly but - well. That always felt like a dick move to him. As businesslike as Marie is, it's still the only personal space she's got, and he doesn't feel comfortable just showing up in a woman's room like that. It's the sort of thing he's never tried and never will, like walking in the women's restroom. It'll have to remain a mystery.

Of course he's aware that phrasing it like that to Marie would piss her off, but there it is anyways. He keys up his communicator instead. "How's the schadenfreude? And have you seen Peter? I haven't been in touch with him since everything went down."

Peter was no longer in residence - he'd moved on to New Zealand and was investigating prescription records in the area, hoping to find anything registered under Cid's or Sarah's name. It could all be off the records, of course, but Cid is just barely lazy enough that he might try to run supplies or something like that under his own name. He always got sloppy on the fine details. One monitor records the hard data he copies out, but with the Blur up and running, personal details are worthless. It's all just labeled "Axiom Transmission" and left otherwise undetailed.

"Turns out there'd been some gang of jailbirds - what they call themselves, in point of fact - that'd been looking for a chance to stage their own breakout. I deputized them into finding out what everyone needs. I prefer the personal touch, but working my way through ninety-something angsty teenagers is probably beyond my talents."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Recorded teleporter use, and an alert to movement on the docks-Marie doesn’t need to look to confirm who’s at the front door (though of course she does)-and activates the elevator before the big man’s even over the threshold of the heavy, reinforced warehouse door.

"How's the schadenfreude? And have you seen Peter? I haven't been in touch with him since everything went down."

“Working.” Marie’s response was simple-but not the usual flat monotone-there’s inflection to the statement, clear approval.

As for schadenfreude- “It was a long time coming and Cid’s a tool-but more important that he's out of my fucking way.” A beat of consideration, then two. “But maybe.”

It’d been eight years. She’s resolved to let herself have this, even if she maybe didn’t deserve it.

The doors slide open with a whoosh of air and he’d find the place and woman much like he’d left it-except...not, at the same time. Marie looks almost rested, for one. Healthier, somehow. The olive skinned woman had never looked old exactly-she probably wasn’t even in her mid thirties, just yet- but there’d previously been a feeling of...rot almost? Like dredged up river deposits left to molder, or a war veteran’s disregard for life and laughter.

And it’s gone. Some of the shadows beneath her eyes, the tense, tightened bitterness-absent entirely. There’d been good news and even victory the day before, an end to the crippling reign of a liar- and the twenty years she’d aged in the past eight watching things go to hell had finally rolled back and stabilized into the actual passage of time.

It probably helped she’d also taken the time to trim her hair into a proper cut, rather than an angry, hacked off afterthought. Despite the night of actual rest and that smidgen of self care for the first time in eons-one of the bland, flavorless nutrient shakes sat open at her elbow, halfway finished.

Baby steps.

Marie indicated a glowing green light indicator (currently casting a green shade on a content, watchful Jasper). “He’s following up a lead on Daybreak. Sanderson’s also unaccounted for and might have briefly been in your house-but otherwise, I got nothing on the kid.”

There’s so much information scrolling through so many monitors-but what else was new? Marie always seemed to have a dizzying amount of tasks going on at any given time, but now that he was there, she clears out of what she’d been doing and focuses.

“Jailbirds...the kids who popped into the Lobby?” That’s a good indication of future agents, certainly. She nods at the delegation, the soon to be ‘settling’ that came with moving nearly a hundred people from one place to another. She’s got a running list of candidates for the hero work, but there was time-the logistics of mass immigration he’d no doubt want help with-and that was something Marie could do.

“So far all Lana’s mentioned is an inhaler for some kid with asthma-get me some lists and I can arrange whatever else is needed.” She’s not hurting on resources. Still better not to invite too many questions about them, but not hurting.

Marie glances up from her tablet, Lana’s documented list of names of former Wards. “...had eyes outside the Tower lobby until that laser melted the drone’s sensors. Still picked up what was said.” An approving nod, but also a study. He looks alright, but he would, he regenerates. Still-it bothers her, somewhere, that he’d stood and taken that blast.

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias glances over Marie. She looks better, healthier - hair brushed and cut, and some of the omnipresent dirt and grease washed off of her. More than that, there's weight lifted off her shoulders, her spine not curled under the weight of omnipresent loathing. He's solved some part of what weighs her down, and that alone makes the Tower worth it for Elias - he'd have done it for the other reasons, still, but this is justice long denied, delivered.

"Pretty much my take on it," he agrees, rolling one shoulder in an absent motion. It pops audibly. "Though it just changes what kind of problem he is. He's still out there. I'd put a fifty-fifty split he either disappears into some kind of Senate consultancy or comes back with a villain crew to try and toast everyone that bucked him. I dunno, he was going all sorts of ways there."

If he'd had a way to manage it, he'd have squashed Cid outright. That wouldn't have sent the right kind of message to the kids, though, so he'd held off. It'd be a problem down the line, somewhere, but his last official act as Adamant on the surface didn't need to be a murder.

Elias nods to the news on Peter, grateful, and lets himself drop to the floor beside Marie's wheelchair without grace. He's a huge pile of man there, head level with Marie's shoulders, elbow slung over atop his knee as he monitor surfs beside her. "Good stuff on Peter. Better we get her sooner than later. She knows these kids and I don't - I'm learning stuff she already knows. S' for Ellie, she's still got her room key at the Coulee. She's a runner at heart. Drop in wherever she feels safest. Best not to chase."

He lets a moment pass, organizes his thoughts. This is what he appreciates: not always having to be on top of shit. Being able to soundboard ideas, whatever they might be. Not having to fill the air with noise and be everyone's best friend - because as much as he likes taking care of people, no one wants to do it all the time. It's just easier to let that part of himself be over-emphasized than explain. There'd been some comedian who'd nailed the concept: when you meet someone for the first time, it's not really them you're meeting in all their flaws and strengths, but their representative. Some polite, communally-agreed manifestation of typically acceptable traits.

Marie is what she is, and he can breathe easy, in light of that.

" . . . If I hadn't caught the brunt of that first blast, Cid would have burned a hole right through the first floor of the Tower," Elias says eventually. "That's not saying I expected it. I didn't, and if I'd realized he'd point that kind of firepower at his own kids I'd have gone straight for him and damn the consequences. I'm saying that if Cid had missed his shot, we'd have maybe a dozen, two dozen charred bodies instead of Wards."

Elias's lips move, for a moment. Silent, looking for words.

"It was an unacceptable risk," he says eventually. "Nothing that should have ever been gambled with. I want you to guide me in next time. If I had known to land on him first, I'd have never been in that situation in the first place."

What he should have done in the first place. Instead, he'd swaggered up like it was a Western. Stupid poseur shit, and he'd almost gotten kids killed doing it.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

That laser had to have ruined him, and she’d heard him speak afterwards-Adamant. She watches Jasper leap down from the console to greet the man sitting casually smack next to her, absently looking over various monitors and the bits of bang in his light blue eyes. She reflects on the letter, and she doesn’t press.

“I shouldn’t have greenlit.” She says instead. It hadn’t been the tightest of operations-there’d been a reason she had expected to wait, and had said as such, too. But then he’d waxed poetry over there, and the nostalgia...the temptation was too great. She’d given in to impulse because of feelings, and while she doesn’t regret doing so-it’d been messy, and she tries not to do things messy.

“You can expect more caution in the future-just because you can survive anything, doesn’t mean you should suffer it.” Marie didn’t waste time on apologies, not very often. Apologies were selfish things in her opinion, a way to relieve guilt. She’s too cut and dry for that, a problem solver. Still, she clearly didn’t like that he’d been in that situation either, and took responsibility for it.

Lazy. She’d been lazy, and it wouldn’t happen a second time. She’d strategize as if Adamant was just as vulnerable as any other tough, which is what the League should have always been doing, in her opinion. What HE should be doing. How the physical traumas he’s endured haven’t driven him insane, she doesn’t know. It couldn’t be healthy, having gone through all of that.

The drone should have been carrying ordinance. That Cid had directly attacked at all-and firing in the direction of his own ‘kids’-Christ. Cid had always been a coldly rational individual, and that just didn’t make any sense. He’s no hero and she’s said that, but she’s also said that his ego kept him playacting as one. That’s what the Tower and the Wards were all about-the last bastion of heroes, all that media song and dance.

It didn’t mesh, risking the very thing he’s supposedly a protector of in so brash a manner. Couldn’t have been ignorance of risk-no. And...

"Where was that thing when he went to Modal’s?" The woman pointed out, the realization just now occurring to her. What the hell- "He'd worn something Machinist had obviously made out there, but this was clearly...you’re bad news, but worse than Paul Marrane bad news? Doesn't make sense."

Didn't make sense, and had a lot of possible implications-all of them more than a little troubling, and others rage inducing. No matter what, he clearly wasn't the same egotistical, coldly rational bastard as before-there was a note of obsession to the knight now, irrationality when it came to Elias.

He was obsessed with hating Elias. It was more than a little troubling.

Marie didn’t know if that meant he’d turn full turncoat or not-he’s already there for having openly attacked Elias in her book. Thank God he hadn’t had anything permanently effective. But if his hatred of Elias eclipsed his egotistical need to be the ‘good guy’, if he had truly become so damned warped over a wedding and his jealousy over the years-he was more dangerous than she’d accounted for, and maybe he -would- turn traitor, lie in bed with the enemy.

But...no, probably not. Cid would probably slink off into politics or a smaller fiefdom somewhere with what was left of his ‘Wards’. She didn’t think he had the guts or the insanity for vengeance. And if he did, well-he's going to disappear. She's not fucking around with him again, not after he'd opted to try melting Elias.

Marie exhaled, a slight shake of her head.

"I'd always given him the edge over me. Social skills, a useful metahuman ability, more experience, seemingly better education...we filled similar roles, but cold rationality didn't require as much discipline for him as it did for me, and he didn't have...the same distractions." Samson. He hadn't had Samson. Or, frankly, her temper.

"At some point he slipped, and the fixation on you undid him.
What'd you do at that wedding, anyway? Slap his mother?" Marie frowned. "He's obsessed."

 

[Obuzeti]

"No," Elias disagrees, shaking his head. "It was the right time and the right thing to do. My approach was just sloppy. Rush and Mindmelt always targeted civilians as distractions, I just didn't expect Cid to. That's a hell of a Rubicon to cross."

Elias leans back as he thinks. The back of his shoulder settles against one arm of Marie's wheelchair, and he stares forward, lip curled in between his teeth as he worries at it. His eyes are distant, foggy blue. " . . . I don't know, and the more plausible my thoughts get the less I like them," he says, slow. "I want to say something like limited power supplies - god knows how much energy that laser cost to produce - but my gut says it's because he wanted a sucker punch in store. Or something like, Marrane can be killed. He's just a guy, in the end."

Elias smiles a little mirthless smile, and makes a limp gesture at himself, as if in comparison.

"I'd have taken you over him in a heartbeat," Elias continues, dismissing that train of thought. "You weren't in the League, so you didn't have to live with his . . . jockeying. He was never happy with anything, but he didn't have anywhere else to go, back then, and I got that. It was the first time I had someone willing to help protect the sisters, too. That was worth a lot."

There's something wistful in his voice, but the mention of the wedding darkens that, his brows beetling down into mutinous dislike. "That wedding," he says, flat. "was a farce. He had a parade for it. Cameras, everywhere. Sarah had one uncle in attendance - her family's a mess, I don't want to get into it at the moment - but Cid had nobody. The front row was fucking reporters. She didn't even have any bridesmaids, because she didn't know any living women to be them and Cid wasn't letting her out of protective custody. Cid hired a couple for the event."

Elias sighs now, old anger and regret mixing in the stress lines of his face. "I went in to see Sarah, first. Tossed a couple people out of the way, security people. Lots of crying. I didn't handle the sight of the wedding well - asked what she thought she was doing, spitting on Tommy's memory like that with Cid of all people. She flew apart, of course. Worst thing I could have said."

"Then Cid came in, all self-righteous and angry, and I had even less patience for his shit. He said I should have stayed up there and been forgotten, so I - pushed him. Through a wall. Lots of yelling, then."

Elias's fingers tap restlessly against his knee. "He said a lot of shit I don't care to repeat. Anything he could think up to hurt me. Lying there in the rubble, shouting at me, while Sarah cried in a heap and the cameras rolled. So I turned and went to Sarah and asked her what she wanted, and she told me to go away."

He shrugs. "So I did. That was the last I heard of it for - a long time."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

The listing of the dead, Elias’ return, the wedding-all of that had happened while she’d still been unconscious-whether the initial coma or the medically induced one she doesn’t really know. She had dragged herself down here to die and hadn’t looked too far into it, really. Daybreak had apparently retreated to Cid’s side, Elias had been turned away and gone home to relative obscurity-and the best the hero community had had to offer went dark.

She’d been so goddamned bitter about that silence. Broken and bitter and crazy, working away in the dark while her city slipped deeper into depravity than ever before, while the scum that had ‘disappeared’ or ‘reformed’ spread their disease in erstwhile countries abroad-all while Cid preened his feathers and sent ‘heroes’ to beat up mall thieves.

Well, the scum’s reprieve was over. She’d have whoever was willing on some long overdue missions soon. The War properly waged.

Her comment had been mostly throwaway-nothing a man like Elias could have possibly done warranted a man like Cid’s irrational hatred, frankly, and the faint ounce of wistfulness in his tone and expression, reflecting on what might have once been, or SHOULD have been a friend-well, that does something to her she doesn’t entirely like-and makes her hate Cid that much more.

He starts in on the story though, and she listens despite not actually having been asking about it. Despite mostly not caring-it’s not pertinent, but it’s what he wants to talk about, so she lets him.

And it’s a mess.

There’s a slight uncomfortable shift just imagining such a shitshow-she doesn’t get people and nothing ever seems to go right even when she does attempt social...anything. The entire incident was something she would have avoided like the plague. Watching his expressions, the restless tapping of his fingers-it’d clearly been a fucked situation. Just, damn.

Damn.

And she doesn’t know what to say about it. Should say something-just...what?

Marie chews that over for a long moment, but comes up empty. There really isn’t anything to say, nothing to make that better-that she can figure. Silence wasn’t an option either, and ultimately she falls back on cop.

“Abusers always work to separate their victims from their support systems-Rahab did most of the work for him, and gave him a good head start on you.” He’d been dead. Things...would have been so much different otherwise-but Marie doesn’t do wishful thinking.

She’s glad he wasn’t dead, and had gone so far as to say so previously. And things were mostly righted, put back on the track she always knew they would be- as well as they could be at least, given they couldn’t undo the damage done by that goddamned eldritch fucking monster.

...maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing, if, when they did find and collect Danvers-all the pair did was bake and...whatever, down there with disenfranchised kids who needed people like them around.

“...I heard all I needed to when she showed up at your house with a sabotaged communicator, saw it before. It’s always bad shit, men like him with people like her.” Always. Marie’s eyes flick to the green light, and then the accompanying map. “We’ll find her, Elias. Then you can both putter around down there and just…” What? Relax? Something.

Heal, maybe. It’d been a long eight years for everybody, not just her.

Another shake of her head, the vigilante struggling a little, per usual whenever she bothered to speak about anything other than business. Or, God help her, feelings.

“Was angry with both of you, long time.” She states bluntly, somewhat out of nowhere and her expression shifting back to that impassive mask. A beat, then two.

“...regret it some, now.”

 

[Obuzeti]

"Opportunistic fuck," Elias agrees, something too geologic and slow to be called spite in how he rolls his shoulders. It takes a lot for him to actively dislike anyone, gregarious family man that he is, but there's a legion of old hurts and old sins piled up against Cid. Judgement's been passed, but the way he preyed on Elias's oldest friend still plucks at his nerves.

He takes a long breath and lets it out. "I suspect that's what Sarah will need," he says heavily. "When we get her back at the end of all this, her fighting days are over. She's going to be too - damaged - to manage the stresses of combat. Let her have what peace she can have. It's about what she deserves, after eight years under the thumb of that fucking mess."

. . . he'd always wondered why Sarah had never had kids of her own, as much as the associated imagery pisses him off. He'll likely never ask, but she loves doting on children; why didn't she have any of her own? None of the answers he can come up with he likes.

"Not for me, though," Elias says, briefly. He reaches up and scratches through chestnut locks, something flickering through those baby blues like an owl in the night. "I'll be a little busier right now, since no one else is in place to coordinate, but once Sarah's back and in charge like she should have been from the start . . . "

He trails off, and glances aside, that hand trailing down the back of his neck and gripping reflexively. Then he turns back to Marie with a shrug. "Be back to what I should have always been doing, I suppose. Anyways, you had a right to be angry with me, but Sarah has always needed a family to give her drive. Don't judge her for getting nothing done when all she had was Cid."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Marie’s right hand gripped the arm of her wheelchair and she twisted a little to face him properly, sitting just slightly higher than he was so that she was looking down-dark eyes sharply focused and intent on his with a snap.

“No, I didn’t have the right.” Marie states point blank. The woman isn’t one to argue, and it seemed less a counterpoint and more a straight fact. It was how she primarily operated-statements irrefutable due to sheer force of will, and punctuated with a determined seriousness as sure as death.

She’s not angry, exactly-but there’s that familiar and often unsettling (at least to others) intensity that just can’t be ignored.

“I didn’t know you had made the same sacrifice they all had out there, and maybe it wouldn’t have mattered if I had-” She’s a shit person, she fucking knows it. “-but no, I didn’t have the right to be angry. You fucking died, Elias. If Sarah deserves a pass, then you most certainly do.”

He had been dead. Elias had gone to the islands, he had fought Rahab, and he had paid the ultimate price the same as so many other good people had done-the best humanity had to offer martyring themselves if only for the barest of chances that they could ultimately triumph.

And they had. They had won. It’d been so costly as to nearly be pyrrhic, but they had won. Whatever rest there was-and Marie did believe there was rest for those fallen friends and allies-they had found it. But not Elias. He’d had to dig himself out of the mass grave in the earth and cooled magma, out of the remains of the beast. Dead, then alive, then fighting yet again-and then banishment.

And to hear him forgive so easily-because that’s what he did, that’s who he was, love and hope and goodness-but deny it for himself-well, it bothers her, and that pinning, predatory gaze slips off as her temper catches, the ensuring words more feeling than fact, a hand running through her dark thick hair and a slightly wild gesture with her left one.

“Bake the fucking cookies, have the things you’re not willing to sacrifice. Be Elias Halwell, however you want to define him. Answer the call if and when you want to, but not because you ‘should’. No one ‘should’- this cesspit of a world doesn’t deserve heroes, and it doesn’t deserve you. All of you are delusional, but in your case-it’s delusion you were born into, this ‘second day I remember’ bullshit.”

The vigilante was usually rather stoic, short on words. Kept herself on a short leash, cloaked and unknown. Here though, it was a very real expression of self, unguarded and unrestrained.

“And for fuck’s sake, stop acting like being obliterated by lasers or melted by acid or disemboweled are par for the course, normal and acceptable occurrences. I don’t care if you're impervious, you shouldn’t have to suffer it. It’s lazy.”

 

[Obuzeti]

His eyes open, and he turns to watch Marie as she speaks. There's something peculiarly empty about his expression, placid and observant. His gaze only sharpens when she brings up the subject of his death. His body is still, and those eyes are little glimmering dots far back under the shadow of his fringe.

Then he lets out a long breath and rolls his shoulders, and hunches forward, planting an elbow on his knee, and listens as Marie continues to talk. It's so rare that she speaks on - sentimental matters - that it's always worth listening to.

And he almost answers the question she doesn't ask, because he does remember. It's just that mortality is a frail skein upon his frame, and it's best to let Elias have what little he can keep. The talismans of his humanity are what keep him worthy.

So he closes his eyes until the starlight ceases to chill the underside of his skin, and Elias muses, a little distant, "I did say that."

Then again, stronger. "Yes. These are the things worth having, and fighting for."

Elias rises from himself like a gargoyle from the ruins of a church. He blows out a breath and gives Marie a side-eye, but doesn't mock her, or make a quip, or try to back down from the tension she raises with her inherent intensity - instead, he leans against the side of her wheelchair, and the side of his head bops her in the arm. It's an uncannily doglike move. "I apologize," he says, sincere. "I struggle to put boundaries for myself, sometimes."

He hesitates again - wants to thank her for being his friend, because that's what she is, despite herself - but it doesn't feel like a thing she'll accept, and that word doesn't quite fit what they have, anyways. There's too many soul-searing secrets shared between them to pretend a Hallmark card copyrighted term can sum it up properly.

But then if the words fail, just say what you feel.

"I'm glad I got you with me," Elias says, simple, and that feels right enough for him to crack a smile, a wry grin at himself, and the foolishness he leads himself into sometimes, that Marie would be the one pulling him out of it.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

For a brief, unsettling moment, Marie’s not sure who she’s talking to. She’s too charged to pull back on the stick and might have regretted getting amped up enough for speech entirely had Elias not responded, oddly sounding as if he was reminding himself of such things. The big man bops his head against her arm and just leaves it there-already tense, Marie’s fingers twitch-but somehow, the odd contact was reassuring, and her hand relaxes against the arm of her chair again, soothed. With that some of the temper settles, and Marie gives a nod, drawing back in and recentering, eyes drifting to a monitor and reading the scrolling data over-Traverse was in China again, apparently-thinking.

He hears her, at least some of what she’s saying-and good, because she’d been immensely bothered for a moment there. He’s always on about what people deserve, coddling anyone that will let him-even projecting better things about HER in places mostly full of rot.

“Just be careful.” He doesn’t deserve to hurt, no matter how temporary.

No, he doesn’t. The man also deserves more than a use, and it’s fucked up it’s her recognizing and having to bat for him over it, rather than better, softer people. Cesspit of a world indeed, she hopes they can find-

”I’m glad I got you with me,”

Dark eyes cut back down and study him a moment-mostly the smile that widens into a bit of a self amused grin, but also his gratitude, and the warmth there. The letter comes back to her.

…

She’s quiet a long moment, gaze opaque and secret-and then she looks away again, a frown. “If you find value to it, then you’re welcome to the company.” She starts, slowly. Something has her thinking, but it wasn’t obvious what, exactly. Marie put it aside, and moved on to another topic of concern.

“But...my name.” She glances back to him, just as quiet and calm, but more certain. “You can have it, you can use it-but not in a mask capacity. It was stolen in the first place, and shouldn’t keep getting dropped in relation to Protagonist.”

A beat.

“...would appreciate it.”

 

[Obuzeti]

If he finds value in it. Elias snorts unwillingly, his smile cracking wide for a moment before fading back to its amused edge. He doesn't come here because it's an imposition, whatever Lana and Jenna might believe. Marie is his touchstone for the real state of what's going on, and that's more important than pretending everything's alright all the time. Look where that got Sarah. More importantly, she's also the only person who sees Elias beneath the mantle of the hero, it feels like, and that's a distinction so few people manage to get.

It's easy for him to forget, too, and she always reminds him of the value of being someone beneath the mask, though this is this first time she's done it verbally instead of - by example.

"That's fair," Elias answers to her request, nodding. "That was procotol in the League, too. Callsigns with the masks on, personal names back at the Lodge. I just forget all the time because I had no personal life. And -"

He pauses, and makes a strange face: eyebrows bunched up, mouth pursed. It's the look of a man who has discovered an unexpected taste in his mouth mid-chew. "It felt right, anyways. I remember everyone talking about Protagonist. Lot of jokes about it, people shrugging off their nerves by taking the piss. I was just never on board with that. It was too easy to pass off the mask as the entirety of who you are."

Elias glances up at Marie, one lidded eye peering up at her from beside the arm of her wheelchair. "So where anyone else can hear, I'll use Protagonist. But you're Marie to me. You understand?"

That feels more right. He'd been making a moral point of calling her by name in the first place - reminding everyone that Protagonist was still a human woman beneath it all, fighting the same battles as the rest of them for the sake of justice. But there's no one left to make the moral point to these days, and the thought of reserving it again clicks home and into place.

Her privacy is worth more than his moralizing, anyways. It's one of the few things she has left.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

“Too easy to pass the mask off as the entirety of what you are.”

It mostly had been. Mostly was. And yet here she is doing nothing, sitting side by side with the big man and listening, watching him talk. Because yeah...people had gotten some strange ideas about what she was and wasn’t capable of.

Demon woman. The scum had believed it, the media-and that’d suited her just fine, because who gave a shit? She was busy, and had preferred the criminal element, the corrupt powers in Samson be afraid, be wary. But to have her allies think it...well. It hadn’t done her any favors. She still had the scars on her left arm from Culebra, back when Livewire had gone ahead, assumed she could handle it, that demons trumped witches.

She’d decked him once she’d made it back to the extraction point, eleven minutes late, bleeding, and very, very pissed off.

“Not exactly the most forthcoming of people.” Marie points out, a little dry but listening. “You saw what passed for my ‘personal life’-the entirety of my time on that team, it was that ratty recliner and those old westerns.” She’s not getting into those again, the Lone Ranger-he hadn’t been familiar, and thank God. If she didn’t know any better, she’d half believe she’d felt embarrassment, bringing them up before.

“Protagonist wasn’t an entity until Rahab.” Then she’d used it. Hidden behind the unfeeling huntress, cloaked herself in all the venom and hate she could. Hadn’t felt. Couldn’t feel, or risk ruination. “It was always just me, out there.” A nod above their heads, her city.

This was mostly true. She’d worn the mask because her face belonged to someone else, and at first, the very beginning- she’d even still been pretending to be her, working her beat. Later, when she’d dropped the dead woman entirely, she’d still withheld her name on joining up with others, because it too was mostly someone else’s. She just hadn’t been much of anyone, anymore. Vengeful reckoning, personified-something the city’s scum fucking deserved, for all her vicious violence. That’d been her. It still was her, the things she did in the shadows. But she’d worn the mask, and she’d bothered with a moniker (something the papers had eventually stuck with, and it hadn’t mattered much to her) because her face and her name belonged to a dead woman, and that dead woman’s husband had deserved more than to be a footnote or mention somewhere, deserved more than a wife that had gone mad.

And it was a bit of madness. The War...everything she had done had been to further it. Joined the Front to avoid further scrutiny, having caught hero attention. Utilized those resources to further herself, become more effective. And then...for some reason, worked to further their cause, too. She had resented the rumors, though. Being seen as ‘other’. She’d accepted it because it didn’t really fucking matter, in the long run-and she didn’t have much recourse. She’s terrible with people.

Which made Elias’ letter and actions somewhat dubious. But here he was, talking about her being people. He sees her. He gets it.

She’s a little relieved-and confused, honestly. But she needn’t be-she has more important things to focus on, and she didn’t deserve his damned friendship in the first place, not these days.

The War was still very much what she had. She’s may be crippled, but she’s still drawing air into her unworthy lungs and her mind still whirred, and so-her efforts would continue.

Business and personal matters mostly settled, Marie picked up her tablet, nodding to his final statement. Good with her. Better than she had any right to. “So. How’s the set up, down there?”


~*~


Ellie was cold. Bundled up fairly well-winter coat, lap blanket, fingerless gloves with mitten tops to fold over, a cap pulled down over her messy ginger hair-she still has to repress a shiver her and there, working down a list of hospitals and facilities she’d torn out of a phonebook in Mr. Halwell’s house. She was in the Coulee-or rather, mirrorworld Coulee, sitting at the dining room table several paces from the full length mirror turned towards it. She was there less because it was someplace to be and more because, if Sarah was still up and moving about freely-she’d surely come here first, as soon as she heard about what had happened in the Tower.

Ellie hoped, anyway. She kept her ears open for noise in the ‘real’ part of the house, and shivered here and there in the darkened one, just a flashlight to see with. She hadn’t slept, yet. She’d been wandering, out there-and she was very tired. Tired enough she wasn’t quite as frantic-just worried.

She carefully circled another address, then turned to a dog earred, worn cheap atlas and map of the city, and marked just how far the listed institution was from the three other ones she’s set to visit. She’s concentrating rather hard on this, a little scribble of figures on the margin of the phonebook page-several crossed out with an x, seemingly related to the addresses already checked off her list.

Whatever she’s doing, it involves converting distances somehow-and given the multiple figures, didn’t seem to be an exact science.