I nodded.
“It was more like… a forcefield. Except not. A hole in reality, and it took something out of me to feed and shape itself.”
I blinked a little in surprise. If Brian was stealing a share of other people’s powers, then-
I blinked again. My eyes were itchy.
“Damn it,” I groaned.
He gave me a curious look. Or at least, that’s what I took it for; I was having a hard time reading his expressions.
“Forgot to take my contacts out. My eyes are going to be sore for a while, and I don’t have a spare pair of glasses to wear.”
He nodded.
“Sorry. So small a problem in the grand scheme of things.”
“You need to be able to see.”
I reached into my utility compartment and got a small case with the spaces for the individual contacts and contact lens solution, then pried my right eye open to pinch the thing out.
A few seconds later, my other contact was out, and I was half blind. The way the shadows fell over Brian’s face, the shadows of his eye sockets made him look like he was wearing sunglasses. I couldn’t see the lines of tension, anger or anxiety. Whatever it was that’d had him awake, sitting up and staring into space at ten or eleven in the evening.
Maybe I should have left them in. Risking an eye infection was small potatoes compared to fucking up this interaction. Except I couldn’t put them back in without having to explain why.
Why was this so hard?
“You get any sleep?”
He shook his head.
“None at all?”
“Didn’t need to. Didn’t want to. Felt better about keeping an eye out for trouble than about sleeping.”
“Trickster and Ballistic are out there.”
“I know. I saw them step outside after Rachel came back.”
I smiled a little. ”Wasn’t so long ago that you were getting on my case for not sleeping enough, mandating that I get a certain number of hours before we moved on the Nine.”
He didn’t respond, and he didn’t move. I couldn’t read his expression. Had I said the wrong thing? Should I not have mentioned the Nine?
“Yeah.” His reply was delayed, almost begrudging. It didn’t sound gentle, or kind, or anything like that. It was more like I’d expect someone to sound if they were giving up the password to a safe at gunpoint.
“Sorry,” I said. I wasn’t sure exactly what for, but the apology was genuine. The smile on my face was gone.
For a minute or two, neither of us said anything.
What had we ever talked about that wasn’t about our costumed life? At first, it had seemed like common sense. I was new to the cape scene, it was exciting, he was experienced, and he’d wanted to share his knowledge. We’d talked about our recent jobs, the implications, even jobs we were considering. I could count on one hand, maybe two, the times we’d done stuff that hadn’t been centered around powers and fighting and violence.
Now that I couldn’t raise those subjects without reminding him of what had happened earlier, I was lost.
“You shouldn’t have come for me.”
“What?”
“Should have left me there. I was as good as dead. Throwing away your life and the rest of the team, to try to rescue me?”
“You’re not thinking straight. There’s no way I’d leave you behind.”
“Right. Because you’re supposedly in love with me, so you go rushing off to rescue me.”
That stung, more than it should have, and it would’ve hit me hard anyways. I couldn’t read his expression, so I went by his tone of voice, by the anger, the bite in his tone. The fact that he’d brought it up so casually.
Emma jumped to mind. She’d been my best friend once, as I was friends with Grue. She’d also flipped on me, turned hostile, and used private thoughts and feelings I’d shared with her to attack me.
I took a deep breath. ”That wasn’t why we came to help you. And it wasn’t just me making the call.”
“Really? Because I remember you were the one who stopped Ballistic from putting me out of my misery.”
I clenched my fists. Any resolve I’d had to remain calm was gone. ”I would have done the same thing for Bitch! Or Lisa, or Alec, even! Are you seriously telling me you wish I’d let you die? You’re alive now! It worked out!”
“Because we got lucky! Christ, you always do this!”
Using my power, I checked on the others. One of the dogs had perked its head up at the shouting, but nobody else had roused. I didn’t take my eyes off Brian, though. The look in his eyes was scary. Angrier than I’d seen him. I’d unconsciously defaulted to the same defenses I’d used against Bitch: Eye contact, pushing back when pushed.
I deliberately lowered my voice. ”Always do what?”
“You’re smarter than average, so you count on your ability to think up solutions on the fly, you throw yourself into these reckless situations, push and vote for the risky plans because you know that’s a situation where you thrive, where you offer the most to the group. Every step of the way, you do it. Pushing the all-out assault on the Wards at the bank, charging in to fight Lung after taking on Oni Lee, the fundraiser, confronting Purity, attacking Leviathan with zero backup, the attack on the Wards’ HQ-”
“Stop,” I said. I was getting flashbacks to my conversations with Armsmaster, now.
“You say you’re not manipulative, that your undercover operation was pure in motive, but you are. You throw yourself into those situations solo, or you join in on whatever fucked up plan the others come up with, and you do it because it makes you useful, because you know we’d struggle without you, you’re making us dependent on you.”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. ”That’s not- not what I’m doing. Every step of the way, I had other reasons. Strategies, or there were people I needed to help-”
“Maybe Bitch was right about you all along.”
“That’s not fair.” This isn’t him. He’s still reeling from what Bonesaw did to him.
That excuse did little to shake my worries that this was what he really thought. Was this the stuff he was holding back, every day he was with me.
“What’s not fair is that I’m the one who’s tried to keep things sensible, to keep this group sane, and when push comes to shove, when I go with the majority because things won’t go smoothly if I don’t, I’m the one who gets captured and tortured. Your plan!”
“Don’t.”
“Are you going to tell me I’m wrong?”
“It- it wasn’t fair. You’re right. But I don’t deserve all of the blame here. I volunteered to be the person Trickster swapped out.”
“Knowing there was no way you could, with your injury. So you let me.” He stared at me with an intensity that I couldn’t meet. I broke eye contact, looking down at my gloved hands, which were clutched together in my lap, fingers tangled. ”Tell me, Taylor. If you don’t deserve blame, who does?”
The Nine. Bonesaw. But I could hardly say that. Not after seeing his reaction when I’d casually brought up the Nine before. However intent he seemed to be on hurting me, I wasn’t going to retaliate in kind.
“That’s what I thought,” he said, to my silence.
I looked up at the ceiling, blinking to get the tears out of my eyes. ”Okay.”
“What?”
“I’ll own up to it. My fault. The blame is at least partially mine. Maybe mostly mine. I’ve been reckless, and others have suffered for it. Dinah, my dad, Bitch, the people in my territory. You. Maybe I am toxic. Maybe me and my motivations, my issues, are causing everyone misery. I can leave the team if you want. Give me the word, and I’ll leave.”
There was a long pause.
“Christ,” he said. ”I’m not telling you to leave. I’m just-”
“You’re making it clear I should. And you’re probably right.“
“I’m frustrated, and I went too far. That’s not what I’m trying to say.”
“Sure sounds lik
e it.”
I stood up and turned away. I didn’t want to see that look in his eyes.
I tugged my armor into position and made sure I had everything I needed. It wouldn’t do to get ambushed and killed as I left. My modified costume was heavier than my old one had been, and between that and the blanket, and this place’s lack of air conditioning, I was sweating. My hair was stuck to the back of my neck.
He wasn’t saying anything.
“I’m going to go. Half my territory burned to the ground, my people need some attention. If you decide everyone’s better off with me gone, just pass on the word. I won’t make a fuss, I won’t say you wanted me gone. I’ll just make an excuse and leave.”
I drew some bugs around my lower face and eyes as a makeshift mask. My real mask was still in tatters. I noted that the modifications I’d made were no longer necessary. I wondered if I would go back to skintight leggings.
It’d be good to get back to my people. To check on them, and ensure they were okay. Maybe they’d be better off without me. If Tattletale or Regent took over the-
“Stop,” he said, cutting off my train of thought.
Didn’t need to hear more of his accusations, his condemnations. I ignored him and headed for the front door.
“Please.”
His tone had changed. I stopped walking.
“I’ve never really said anything like this to anyone,” he said. ”But I’m scared. I’m more powerful now, but I feel more insecure than ever.”
How was I supposed to respond to that? A part of me wanted to sympathize, to hug him and tell him it was okay. Another part of me was angry, wanted to slap him, scream at him, because he was still focused on himself, himself, himself, after he’d just attacked me. I understood why he’d done it, but that didn’t make his barbs hurt any less.
“I’m sorry,” he said. ”I’m on edge. I’m spooked. I can’t calm down. I shouldn’t have said what I did.”
“And you can’t stop thinking? I feel like that, all the time, and I have for a while.”
“They had Aisha. So much of what I’ve done, I’ve done because I wanted to support her. Make up for the fact that I wasn’t there when she needed it, before. Only we’re putting her in more danger, and she doesn’t respect me enough to let me keep her out of danger.”
I turned around.
“And as long as I’m being honest and upfront,” he said, “I was thinking about you when I had my trigger event.”
I swallowed.
“I won’t lie and say I’ve suddenly realized I’m in love with you. I don’t really know what I feel, so I can only comment on what I think. I can say I respect you on a lot of levels, even if I can’t figure you out.”
“Sure as hell didn’t sound like you respected me thirty seconds ago.”
“I worry about you. You throw yourself into these situations like you don’t care if you die, like you’ve got nothing to stick around for except for those people you insist on protecting. Dinah, the people from your territory. People you barely know, if at all. And then you actually make it out okay, so you do it again, only more so. Riskier stuff.”
I folded my arms. This was uncomfortably close to what he’d been saying before.
“I start thinking about how I’m supposed to protect you, get you to stop, get you to focus on a goal that’s actually attainable, because you’re so capable that you could be amazing if you stopped acting suicidal. Then I get pissed at myself and I get pissed at you, because I can’t figure you out, and you move forward so fast that I can’t keep up. I let my guard drop for one evening to focus on other things, and then I find out you’d gotten in a fight with Mannequin.”
“It’s not your job to look after me. If you want to get on my case because I’m putting you and the others at risk, that’s fine. It’s your right to yell at me for that. But don’t make me feel bad because you can’t be the macho guy, protecting me.”
“That’s not-” he stopped. ”No. I’m trying to say I think about you more than I should.”
I looked away. I might have asked whether he thought about me more than he should because he cared, or because I was a fuck up. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer, either way.
“Stay? When I asked you to keep me company, I was being genuine. Rather not be alone with my thoughts.”
I sighed. ”I could do with some tea. I could make you some coffee if you wanted.”
He shook his head. ”Jumpy enough already.”
“I’ll be right back.”
I headed into the kitchen, put a kettle on and began digging around for teabags. It wasn’t easy, when I was half-blind.
Once I had the teabags and a mug set, I got my cell phone out.
“Cranston here,” the woman on the end of the line replied. ”What can I do for you, Skitter?”
Cranston was the woman Coil had assigned to me, as he’d assigned employees to the others, so he wasn’t personally dealing with each of us when he had other things to focus on.
“Need glasses. Coil has the prescription on file from when he got me my contacts.”
“I’ll have them for you by morning. Anything else?”
“No- wait. Yeah. Can you pass on a message to the PHQ?”
“Coil has contact information. Hookwolf’s contingent exchanged contact details with the other teams, including the PHQ.”
“No. I mean, without going through Coil’s channels. I need to give them a message from me.”
“That can be arranged. I have a pen and paper, if you’d like me to take dictation.”
“Tell them Burnscar’s dead and Bonesaw’s missing a pair of hands for at least a little while. Four and a half members left. If they were being honest about waiting for the right moment to strike, this is probably a good one.”
“Mm hmm.”
“We can give them the location of the Nine if they’re interested.”
“Should I give them your contact information?”
“They have enough tinkers that I’d be worried about them tracking me down. No. If they want to get in touch, I’ll leave it to them to figure it out. Not going out of my way.”
“Alright.”
“And one last thing. Tell them ‘thanks for the help’.”
“I’ll get the message to them promptly.”
I hung up.
I returned to Brian with a mug of tea for myself and a glass of water for him. The television was on, and he sat in the middle of the couch. He patted at one cushion. With the way he was positioned, there was no way for me to sit a distance from him.
At the same time, when I did sit, he didn’t reach out to touch me, to put a hand on my shoulder, or any of that. We watched terrible late night TV with the volume so low we could barely hear it, not talking, not making body contact, barely even looking at each other.
He’d confessed feelings for me, after a fashion; I had a special place in his thoughts, even if he didn’t know what that meant, exactly. We were sharing personal parts of ourselves we’d never let others see. We even cared about each other.
I just hadn’t wanted it like this.
13.x (Interlude; Piggot)
It’s like the world’s gone mad, and I’m the only sane person left.
Director Emily Piggot finished the last of her coffee and paused to survey the enormity of the task that lay ahead of her. The scale of it could be measured in paperwork. Piles of it. Sometimes two feet high, the stacks of paper were arranged in rows and columns on every available surface, including the top of her coffee maker and the floor around her desk. There were stacks of stapled pages, each topped with a weight to protect it from the gusts and breezes that flowed through the open window frames.
She couldn’t help but notice the way that the pages at the bottom of the pile were neatly organized, tidy, everything in line. The newer pages, the ones at the top, were the sloppy ones. Pages were slightly out of alignment, some dog-eared or stained.
The same progression could be measured in the prin
t. The older pages were typed, printed as forms with everything in its place. Abruptly, it all shifted to handwriting. Shatterbird’s destruction of everything glass and everything with a silicon-based chip inside. Computer screens and computers. The handwriting, too, grew less tidy as the rise of the piles marked the passage of time. On occasion, it would improve for a day or two, when her captains and sergeants complained about illegible handwriting, but it inevitably slipped back into disarray.
A strong metaphor, Emily Piggot thought. Every part of it said something about the current circumstances.
The shift from uniform typed words to countless styles of handwriting, it said something about the innumerable voices, the break down of the cohesive, ordered whole. What resulted were hundreds, thousands of self-interested voices. One in five condemned her, two in five pleaded with her for assistance in some form, and the remainder simply expected her to perform her duties as a cog in the machine.
She looked over the sheer volumes of paper around her office. The PRT handled cases where parahumans were involved, and these days, it seemed like everything and everyone was touched in some way by the heroes, villains and monsters of Brockton Bay. Every time the other precincts had the slightest excuse, they would claim that it was the PRT’s responsibility. If they had no excuse at all, they would claim it a joint responsibility. Until she read over the cases in question and either signed off on them or refused them, the job was in her hands. As far as the ones passing the buck were concerned, it was out of their hands.
The first real intrusion on the average citizen’s life had been the bombings instigated by the ABB. Frightening, but it had been easy for the average person to believe they wouldn’t be one of the victims, to shrug it off as the same background noise of heroes and villains that they’d experienced for much of their lives. Now, between Leviathan, Shatterbird, the fighting and the formation of territories, everyone had reason to worry and give serious thought to who they needed to support and how they were going to protect themselves.
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