Valentine's Day

Diane Stansfield/Gallant

February 1st,2013

"I still don't see why we have to do this," I yell, my voice barely loud enough to be heard past the whipping wind.

"Because!" Victoria shouts back, "Foil said they're acting strange and given what happened to Parian, someone should check in on them."

"I got that part!" I try to resettle my arms around her and pull myself closer. "I just don't get why we can't use the elevator like everyone else!"

"What? I thought you liked being carried!"

"I do! Just not when it's a thousand feet in the air!"

"Close to a thousand and a half I think," Victoria corrects, "Medhall tower isn't just the tallest building in Brockton Bay, it's one of the tallest in the country."

"Oh," I gulp, trying my best to inject some humor in my voice. "That's uh… that's very interesting babe… yeah."

I open my eyes slowly, Victoria's body mostly shields my face from the bitter wind and because of that, I'm just barely able to make out the thin sheen of burnt orange in the air around her.

I roll my eyes and groan preemptively, if she's amused enough that I can see it through her aura then—

"Aww," Victoria coos, her voice dipping into the obnoxious 'soothing' she does whenever she carries someone not used to flying. "Don't worry your pretty little head. Nothing could ever make me drop my princess."

There's a part of me that's mortified that even though she's clearly teasing me, I can't quite stop that floaty brightness in my chest from sparking up. 

I know it's a bit cliche as far as petnames go but being called princess is… well, it's really nice.

I suppose that's the gender euphoria getting to me, doesn't matter how silly the thing is, as long as it affirms my gender identity, I'll smile at it.

You'd think I'd have gotten used to it by now, given that I've been feeling some kind of euphoria every single day because of the last year and some change but you'd be wrong.

It's just another new thing in my life, one of the many big changes.

I gulp and look down past Victoria's back, the city is… it's so different compared to the Brockton Bay I knew.

Nothing has stayed the same, not the villains, not the heroes, not the economy, not even the geography.

Most of the towers are gone and in their place is the lake below us, the one Leviathan dug with his waves and brought up through the aquifer.

The promise Christener made back in June of 2011 never came to pass, the lake was never drained and the Bay wouldn't see the rubble taken out of it until the June after that.

The rubble reduced the height of it a little, but the reason it isn't as much of an eyesore as it could be is mostly because of Amy.

Sure, the city planners did their drafts with fountains and benches and greenery around the lake but it was my girlfriend that turned it into the view it is now.

The water catches the light in a way that seems otherworldly, like there isn't a single angle where it doesn't look like it was ripped from another world.

The flora and fauna are mostly mundane, save that most of them shouldn't be able to live this far north but I doubt there's many botanists willing to say anything in a city both Panacea and Blasto call home.

The size of it caught me off guard, I mean I've been seeing it pretty much everyday since Leviathan dug it but then it was a rotten pit, it made sense for something so ugly to be so big, especially in a city as dreary as it is.

But after it got cleaned up… it's rare you see something so pretty and so vast. 

It stretches out, all the way from Medhall's steps and barely hitting the backside of the boardwalk but not quite hitting the ocean.

And that's not all.

The boat graveyard, the old rusted trainyard, there gone. In their place is a harbor that's just starting to see in ships and trains just starting to be sent out.

It's a sight my generation never got to see and it's a sight that brought dad to tears. 

The memory gets me to smile, Arthur Stansfield has always been something of a reserved man, rarely speaking unless spoken to and usually keeping his voice just a bit too hard to really get into conversations with but he's still my dad and he still called me when the first ships came back.

He's a good dad, or well, he tries his best. It took him a few months to start calling me by my actual name and I bet it'll take a few more for him to understand that, yes you can date more than one person.

Still, at least he likes my girlfriends, even though he keeps texting me: "Are you sure they know you're dating both of them? I once knew a man in Sacramento that would've sworn—"

I lean my chin up until it's settled on to Victoria's chin and as I scan my eyes over the bustling boardwalk, I can't help but notice the lack of enforcers.

The ABB are scattered, the Empire's dead practically to the last man, and what was left of the Merchants got scooped up by the Teeth and then dissolved into the Chain Gang or the horseman.

Without any gangs to protect people from, the enforcers are out of a job. Not that their job did much anyway, given that most enforcers I saw took way too much glee in just being an ass to everyone they came across.

Now the cape scene has only three real factions on the exterior and if you dig even a little, you'll find it's really only one.

Blasto might look like our enemy given the semi weekly fights we have with him but anyone with a head on their shoulders knows why the fights take place where stuff's already broken.

We have our pretend fights with fake bruises and feigned injuries and maybe a pothole gets deep enough that the city can't ignore it when the Protectorate arrives to 'dispell' us.

On the surface there are three heads but all of them just lead back to the same body, the Undersiders are the only real power in the Bay.

My bosses and teammates, the thieves turned warlords turned very fucking scary mob bosses.

Two years ago, if a journalist had asked me would I ever leave the Wards, I would've said no. If I'd been asked if I ever would've gone villain, I'd have asked if the reporter had a fever.

But a lot can change into two years, all things need to do that, is one big push.

And the first one we got was Leviathan.

That… was bad, we might have the beautiful lake below us because of that overgrown lizard but that doesn't change that a lot of good people died that day.

That's to be expected, whenever an Endbringer comes knocking you can always guarantee senseless death and Leviathan was just as deadly as he's always been.

It's a miracle none of the Wards died but that wasn't because we were lucky.

The only reason Aegis was able to transfer with Weld is because an out of towner took a hit meant for him. Some kind of Mover/Brute combo from what I can recall… had given his life to save a boy he barely knew.

Browbeat or Brendan as I knew him, would've died if Brandish hadn't found him, hadn't carved away the rubble that pinned him to the street.

The biokinetic was in a bad way last I saw him. He tried getting Brandish to her nephew, but the wave came just before they made it to Shielder.

Brendan survived, getting hit by Leviathan's waves is a lot like if a brick wall decided to move as fast as a car but Brendan's telekinesis stopped it well enough.

For himself at least.

Last I heard, he was transferring out to Vegas, somewhere without salt water and the New England chill. GRanted, that transfer took forever, he was still in the Bay until last July I think.

I haven't spoken to him since but his Wiki's still being updated so I know he's alright out there.

"Whatcha thinking about?" My girlfriend asks me, the wind dying down a bit.

"What tells you I'm thinking?" I ask back, "for all you know I could just be enjoying the view."

"You could," she acquiesces, tilting her chin from side to side before her arms squeeze tighter around me. "But I'd like to think I know my princess—" she pulls back just enough that I get to look into her eyes. "And she—" she pushes her head forward until our noses are touching. "Always rests her head on my shoulder when she's thinking."

I roll my eyes at her but tilt my chin down anyway, letting our foreheads meet as I giggle.

"Y'know if you keep being so perceptive, Lisa will want to fight you. There can't be two blonde Thinkers on this team."

"Would you believe Amy made that exact same joke when you got us breakfast?" She asks me, "And besides, if she wants a fight, I'm game."

Her tone is jovial and her face is drawn up to mirror that but I can see past those things. Despite how convincing she might seem, she can't lie to my power and the deep red of her rage is strong enough that even her aura can't spoof me.

I know Victoria has a right to be pissed with Lisa and I know that asking her about it is just going to open old wounds. But still, I just don't get why.

After Leviathan, Victoria had nowhere to turn to, New Wave only lost one member but they… it's mean to say but after Marquis their contributions to the Bay weren't enough to keep her.

And Victoria would've sooner died than join up with the Wards, an organization tangentially related to Armsmaster, the man who broke the truce, the man who rigged Browbeat's and Skitter's armbands to malfunction.

If it weren't for him… Browbeat could've called for help from an actual Mover instead of barely surviving because of someone who just so happened to be close by.

Victoria needed to go somewhere and while I didn't think it was the right decision then, the Undersiders were more than happy to accept some hard muscle into their group.

I tried to persuade her, I tried to tell her that maybe New Wave could be the best option, I even offered to unmask myself just to be with her but once she makes up her mind, nothing on earth can change it.

So I did what a good boyfriend should, I couldn't stop her, but maybe I could swerve her. 

I followed her into the dark.

At the time, I thought we might've been able to change how the Undersiders operated, thought that maybe between Victoria, Amy, and I that we might be able to be something of a good influence.

And that might've been working just the tiniest bit at first, but honestly that might just be wishful thinking.

But then, a week into our new careers, the Nine came and then after that was Coil and after him came Echidna and there just wasn't anytime to consider what we were doing.

I don't know when it happened but at some point in all that surviving… we had become villains.

Not bankrobbing, running from the heroes, and monologuing villains but actual, torturing Empire members for information, extorting politicians, gang running monsters.

I didn't realize it when I made Victor lose his bravado, I didn't realize it when I was fighting Dragon's mechs, and I didn't realize it when I shot to kill my clones.

I realized it when I was banging on the door of a little apartment and demanding protection money, when a little girl no older than seven answered the door and said they couldn't pay it right now.

It was a wake up call, one that I'm ashamed to admit probably wouldn't have worked when there were more… pressing things to worry about.

But she caught me in a rare moment of peace and it was only because of the lurid yellow fear around her that let me see the blood on my hands.

Once I saw the animal I'd become, I tried to get things back on track but… the others were too far gone, Victoria was too far gone.

The girl in question pulls my head back to her shoulder and I close my eyes as her hand runs through my now long hair, the curls of it fighting her gentle petting.

I knew it wouldn't work, not really. 

The Undersiders had been operating all that summer through fear and an iron grip and for one of their own to try and change things… well, all things considered, I got off pretty light.

I owed it to who I used to be, to my old friends, to at least give a token effort.

At first it was little things, trying to get them to pull their punches, trying to get them to remember that at the end of the day, the people we were fighting were still human but… there was a misstep.

I don't even remember what I said exactly, just some comment about how… monstrous controlling Shatterbird was I think, but I remember what Lisa said to me.

She was so angry then, livid that I'd call such a power, Alec's power, monstrous. She pointed her finger to my chest and I hold Tori all the tighter as the exact words echo in my brain, their inflection and cadence etched into my memories.

‘Maybe, you should get your own house in order before you barge into ours, maybe, you should figure out if it’s a knight’s mail or a princess dress you want to fight in.’

The words shattered me like nothing else, PRT trained me on Thinkers, told me that they couldn't hurt me worse than my own thoughts but… I didn't know.

I mean, I always sort've knew about it, that ever present… pressure, that feeling like I was wearing shoes too tight on my soul but… it's stupid but I thought all guys had to deal with those thoughts.

I snort as I lean my face against Victoria's ear, the smell of her vanilla shampoo hitting me full force.

"What's got you giggly?" She asks, noticably slowing our pace a bit.

"Just thinking about what I said to Harper again."

Victoria snorts as well but hers quickly becomes a full blown laugh as she remembers.

"Yeah, yeah," I reply, patting her back.

"N-no wonder," she giggles, "It took you two so long to realize, if you put two eggs in one basket they're just going to say it's normal to want to be a girl!"

She laughs like her joke is the funniest thing in the world and I can feel my own shoulders start to shake, her joy is infectious.

I shake my head fondly and lean into her as much as I can.

The journey I had to go on… it was like nothing I'd ever done before. Lisa had opened up something that might as well have been radioactive and now that I was aware of it, I couldn't just seal it back up.

Saying it like that makes it sound like it was a long and drawn out fight and while it was (and still is in some respects), the physical bits… happened overnight.

It's actually kinda funny how little it took for Amy to give me the body I needed, she was so excited to do something new she almost seemed disappointed when it was all over.

I certainly wasn't.

My broad shoulders, my deep voice, and narrow hips… they're all gone.

I'm even shorter than I used to be!

The reminder of my new physique gets me to squeeze my arms tighter and to… I don't really know if there's a term for it but my girlfriends call it 'the euphoria jitters.'

Victoria's giggles finally die down and as she resettles her grip on me, she clears her throat.

"We're getting pretty close, what can your elf eyes see?"

The joke is terrible but I laugh anyway as I turn in her grip, my hands white knuckled on her shoulders as I look towards Medhall Tower.

"Nothing yet," I tell her, "they've got their windows in opaque mode, I think there's a balcony on the other side."

"A balcony?" Victoria asks, incredulous. "Since when did they get a balcony?"

"Last July I think," I answer, "Don't you remember the crane?"

"Well yeah, but I thought that was for something else, getting a balcony built that high up must've cost millions."

"It probably did," the wind gets a bit more severe as we circle the building, the tower no longer blocking it as we head for the large balcony.

"It can't be the height that's got you clinging to me like this, I've been flying you around for years now Didi."

I'm about to point out that we never go this high when a gale slams into us, forcing me to close my eyes and squeeze my arms tight.

"Y'know, if it's the upskirts you're worried about, you should probably cross your legs."

Her words send my eyes slamming open and I quickly move to bring my skirt down when I realize I'm not wearing my costume. I'm just wearing my blue jeans and a coat, same as her.

"You jerk!" I chastize, lightly bringing my fist down on Victoria's chest as she laughs.

"Sorry!" She 'apologizes,' the slight silver sheen of deceit blanketing her amusement. "You're just so cute when you're flustered and it's always so ea—"

"There it is!" I interrupt her, pointing to the balcony and biting my tongue when her amusement heightens.

The stone overhang is meant to blend in with the already existing architecture and it does that well enough, although the wooden slats meant to buffet the wind have been turned closed like shutters.

"Full incognito," my girlfriend says, "Blinds drawn, shutters closed… something has them spooked."

"Yep," I reply, loosening my grip on her as we land through the open roof.

With the shutters closed, the wind can't get to us but even still, I rub at my shoulders as Victoria sets me down.

I've got a bad feeling about what we're about to see.

Looking around, the balcony itself is sparsely decorated save for some plants in the corners and ivy hanging off the walls. There's two armchairs just on the entrances right and a long outdoor table on the left, with some hanging chairs that look as expensive as they are impractical.

"What were Lily's words exactly?" I ask, trying not to let the tingle in my spine climb any higher.

"Can't remember it word for word," Vicky answers, hand pushing off my shoulder as she starts walking to the entrance. "Just that they were worse for wear."

I hum in acknowledgement and that's when I realize something, it's… odd that this is the first time I've been here.

Not the first time I've been at this building I mean, my dad once had a meeting here with Max Anders and thought to bring me along for some reason.

That was long before the CEO's double life became known, I didn't even have my powers then.

The decor was a lot… sharper back then.

This is the first time I've been here since Grue and the others had it remodeled. Come to think of it… I actually can't remember the last time I saw any of them face to face 

They call me enough I suppose, especially Rachel given that she's the head of my… division, but that's different, that's a bit more impersonal, even when it's half work half conversation.

"Have you ever been here before?" I ask my girlfriend as she floats the last few feet to the door.

"Nope," she says, humming a little when the handle refuses to budge. "I think we were supposed to have a party here back in June but that never went anywhere."

"That was Taylor's birthday I think… I guess it's better that they spent it alone." I snap my fingers as I join Vicky by the door, "maybe that's why I haven't seen them in so long, honeymoon phase might've made me nauseous." 

"Honeymoon phase?" Victoria asks, cupping her hands and pressing them to her eyes like binoculars. "Which ones?"

"All of them," I say, giggling when she turns to look at me, binoculars still raised. "Just like us but bigger, or maybe it started out lik—"

Something catches just in the corner of my eye, a shadow just behind the glass door that quickly grows to encompass it all.

"Look out!"

Victoria knocks me to the floor just as a circular couch crashes through the door.

The door slams against the windows as it swings off its hinges, the metal caved and dented at points. Victoria floats backwards to compensate for the heavy weight of the couch though she grunts more with the effort of resettling her grip than the actual weight of the thing.

With an awkward shrug, Victoria sets it down in front of the two armchairs as best she can. The seats are torn to shreds and not just because they were thrown through glass, some of the cuts are parallel to each other, like claws ripped at—

"FUCK!" 

My heart leaps out of my chest as a bestial roar sounds from inside, I turn my head that way and ball at what I see.

Rachel stands there, past the dining room and into what must be the living room and she doesn't look like herself.

When Amy gushed about the experiments she was doing, altering Rachel's DNA to spoof her power, I was more focused on how cute the biokinetic can get when she's got a project rather than the project herself.

Right now, I wish I paid more attention to her.

Rachel looks more like her dogs than a human being, with rough leathery skin covering her elongated arms and legs with claws each about half a foot long and at least an inch thick.

Her spine has grown, giving her a sort've hunchback that doesn't look too bad given the new broadness of her shoulders and the muscles that strain against her clothes.

She looks at us with wild slitted eyes, the amber pupils having grown to consume the whites and while her appearance is almost a one for one of a classic werewolf, all my eyes can look at is her aura.

Victoria floats back to where she was, now shielding me from the titanic form of our friend and I scramble up to look past my girlfriend and back to the almost noxious gray cloud hanging over Rachel.

For a moment, Rachel looks like she's about to pounce on us, claws snicking against each other and extended maw snarling but then that gray cloud of sorrow seeps into her.

She falls to her knees with enough force that I can feel it through my feet and as Victoria's own skin shines with her barely withheld intimidation… Rachel starts to sob.

It can't be comfortable, sitting where the couch just was, the mottled gray stone beneath letting us know that it was actually bolted to the floor. Her elbow thumps harshly against the low coffee table next to her but if she feels it, she gives no indication.

Tori's power stops itching to release itself and the both of us take a moment to tilt our heads at the odd combination of crying and whimpering before we both make our way towards the dog handler.

The penthouse is… it looks like it was attacked, furniture destroyed, the walls scratched to hell, some of the lights just hanging from their wires but for all the destruction, not a single window is even cracked.

"Uh…" Victoria clears her throat, both of her hands raised cautiously as she floats over, "Bitch, what's going on?"

The auburn haired girl doesn't break her sobs, doesn't even look up to acknowledge the question and… what the hell is wrong with her emotions?

Rachel's feelings have always looked a little strange to my power, the emotions running by so fast that the colors barely set before changing but this is different.

And I don't just mean the intensity of them either. While the gray of her sorrow matches the jumpers I've had to talk down, that would almost be normal compared to just how the cloud shifts.

Emotions are… they're strange, even though my power gives me a lot in how to interpret them, I don't think I'll ever fully understand them.

But I don't need to be a master with it to know what I'm seeing is wrong.

Typically, the aura grows outward, with emotions coming from within and diffusing into something I can see but this is the opposite.

The emotions come from… from nowhere as far as I can tell, rage, hate, frustration, annoyance, embarrassment, all the angry hues and tones just manifest around her and spike inward.

But they're not real, somehow I can see them but… they don't have the same mass as the real thing, like the shell without any buckshot inside.

But even though they shouldn't be doing anything, they are.

Every little bolt of malice fuels that gray cloud behind her and—

"Diane!"

I jump and turn my head, startled at the concerned look my girlfriend's sending me.

"I'm sorry," I apologize, suddenly feeling lightheaded as I resettle my footing. "Their emotions, they're… it's like they're playing in reverse but it's only fueling sadness."

Just as I explain it, another empty bullet of hate starts to coalesce, bigger than the others, the edges of it sharpened into a crimson red and spearing into Rachel.

The second it sinks under her skin, Rachel wails, her unintelligible shout shaking the walls with grief.

"Oh God!" She screams, her arms wrapping around herself and nails scratching at her shoulders. "We didn't know! We didn't know but that— that doesn't make it better!"

"What is she—" Victoria's question is cut off when another shout comes from above, one that's a fair bit shriller than Rachel's. "Nevermind that, Di, stay here with Rachel, I'll be right back."

"No, Tori, don—" my girlfriend doesn't stay to hear me out and flies up to the second story through the overlook, leaving me with the cripplingly depressed ball of muscle.

Rachel's sobs turn quiet again and she lifts her head up just enough that I can see her amber eyes welling with tears.

I gulp.

Rachel and I… haven't really been on the best of terms these last two years. She's always gone for the first first approach while I've always tried diplomacy. And I mean the actual kind of diplomacy, the one where you sit down and try to compromise, not the kind that lets Lisa lord over how smart she is.

Still, even though we've barely spoken and I don't think she'd call me a friend, I have to at least try and help her.

"Hey," I broach, trying to remember all the tips and tricks Taylor taught me for dealing with Rachel. "What happened? Are you hurt?"

"No," Rachel replies, voice trembling as she shakes her head. "Not hurt but— but— they—"

"Sh, sh, sh, sh," I quiet her and try my best not to look terrified as I take the last few steps to be by her side. "It's okay, things are going to work out, okay, they're—"

"No," Rachel ducks her head back down and her claws seem to grow as her shoulders shiver. "You don't know that, you don't know what happened and—"

"Okay, okay." I shush her again, having spotted the beginning of a spiral. "I don't but… I know you, and I know you're friends and I think this is just gonna be another thing you guys pull through."

Rachel swallows another sob and I gulp with her, I know she's not going to hurt me but that's not making this any less tense.

"Where are they?" I question, "Where's Brian? Where's Alec?"

I know the second I've messed up when that swirling cloud of gray becomes a maelstrom of bloody rage.

The Changer stands up to her full height and I balk at the three of so feet I need to stare up to look at her when she brings one enormous fist down on the coffee table.

The thick wood gives way just a little bit, Rachel's strength not quite enough to shatter the two inch thick oak. That said, it still cracks like hell.

Blood drips from her punctured skin but even still, Rachel brings her fist back down again, the second blow caving it in.

"Rachel!" I try to stop her but experience from trying to hold back Victoria stops my arms from grabbing her. I know I'll only end up hurt.

"We were so fucking stupid!" She shouts again, her throat tearing as she brings her other hand down to grab at the table's rounded edge. "We bought all this shit, all this crap we—" she huffs as she pulls. "Didn't need and—"

The table's ripped off the floor with a pop and she grabs on to it with her other, bleeding hand as she bends backwards.

"For what!?"

She punctuates her statement by heaving the mangled table into their TV, the screen proving its fragility as it explodes with the force thrown at it.

The shards tinkle against the hardwood and after a moment, a much larger piece of the screen falls from the top to join its brothers on the floor but the destruction didn't sate Rachel's rage.

She huffs for a moment, shoulders sagging and knees bending as her arms fall to her sides.

"What was it all for?"

With her question said, the inferno of anger inside her falls apart, splitting down the middle before it all turns gray again. Like a puppet with her strings cut, Rachel falls back to the floor, her knees drawn up and hugged by her arms.

Before I can do anything, before I can even try to process what I just saw, a voice sounds from above.

“We’ve got two more here,” Victoria says, holding both Taylor and Lisa in her arms, the two of them wrapping around each other tightly. “Brian’s upstairs but… I can’t get to him.”

“It’s all wrong,” Taylor speaks up, her voice a hoarse rasp. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this, it… it wasn’t supposed to—”

She quiets abruptly, hiding her mouth in Lisa’s shoulder as Victoria steps down.

“My fault,” Lisa says, either she didn’t hear Taylor or she doesn’t know how to respond. “I should’ve known, it’s my job to know things but I… I just didn’t— he played me like a fucking fiddle and I thought—” she chuckles mirthlessly, “I thought I was so clever, thought I had them all figured out.”

Their emotions are just like Rachel’s own, surrounded by phantom feelings and made all the sadder when those phantoms attack them. But unlike Rachel, they aren’t swinging pendulously from sorrow into rage.

Lisa is just staring into the middle distance, tears falling from her glazed eyes as she keeps mumbling to herself, with maybe one or two words being intelligible, something about a ‘him’ and Alec.

Taylor is still crying even though she doesn’t have any more tears to shed, the tracks on her face have dried into a clammy mess and that’s when I realize, they all still have their costumes on, even though their meeting with the Director was two hours ago.

I shake my head, trying to actually dislodge my thoughts and get my attention focused back on the present.

“What do you mean you can’t get to him?” I ask Victoria just as she awkwardly sets both of them down beside Rachel.

“I mean he’s doing his whole, covering himself in darkness thing, the thing he does for Brutes. I can’t lift him if I’m not strong.”

“And what makes you think I can do it?” I ask, I might’ve been able to lift Brian before I transitioned but my new body’s way too thin to lift him up now.

“I’m not asking you to lift him.” She explains, “Just… talk to him, maybe you can get him down here.”

I sigh but do as I’m told.

The walk upstairs isn’t very long but unlike the girls downstairs, Brian isn’t making any noise for me to listen to. That or his power’s suffocating it.

Either way, I open up the door to three different bedrooms before I find the right door.

Inside is a pretty sparse office, with only a wide desk and three chairs inside. The desk definitely had a monitor on it at some point but that’s been thrown to the floor to make room for the man sitting on top of it.

Brian is covered in his power, with only his eyes open to me. Or at least, that’s what it looks like at first. But as I step closer, I realize the dark covering his body is just the black of his costume, with the smog around his hands and feet blending in a way that just makes it look like he’s covered in it.

I’m turning around to tell Victoria that she’s good to lift him when he speaks.

“This was his room, y’know?”

I turn back to him and do my best not to gulp at the dead look in his eyes. Like Taylor, his tears have all dried up but unlike his teammates, he isn’t so consumed by his emotions that he can’t speak.

“I thought it made sense then to turn it into an office, something would make me, make Grue feel more like an important person. You know how many times I’ve actually used this space? Never. I never called anyone to meet me, I never even made calls in here. But still… I kicked him out anyway.”

“KIcked who out?” I question before doing a mental check in my head. “Alec?”

That actually gets Brian to choke up, his next words dying in his throat as he sucks in a sharp breath, his eyes welling up for a moment before he blinks away the tears.

“Yeah… Alec, we…I can’t believe it.”

“What happened? Please, I know it must hurt to talk about and you guys are clearly hurting so ple—”

“We kicked him out, we… it was for the best, at least… we thought that but— it wasn’t our thoughts. I mean they were but they weren’t, we—”

“It’s okay.” I cut him off as nicely as I can and step over to him with as much compassion as I can convey. “It’s gonna be alright, just… take it from the top.”

Brian nods and takes my hands freely when I pull him down into one of the armchairs.

“It started on Valentine’s day, at least, that’s the earliest date Lisa can pin it to.”

Diane Stansfield/Gallant

Two hours later

The door creaks a bit as I close it and I take just a moment to scan over the four of them one final time. The second we got two beds pushed together, the four just collapsed into it, the gray clouds around them shrinking a bit when they started holding each other.

That said it’s still—

“That was really bad.”

The door clicks closed as I turn towards the hall, both Amy and Victoria filling the space behind me. Amy looks just as dazed as I feel. Her brown eyes look up into mine and she shakes her head with an exhausted slowness, short; frizzy hair swaying.

“Exhausted, dehydrated, and their endocrine systems are going haywire, cortisol, dopamine, all the emotional neurotransmitters are pouring into them nonstop.” She sighs heavily and let’s her head hang a bit. “I put them to sleep but… I wish we had more Thinkers, I have no idea what’s wrong with them.”

For a second, my brain tries to weigh the pros and cons of telling my girlfriends everything Brian told me but the decision is made as soon as I step in to hug Amy. The healer sinks into me as soon as my arms wrap around her and our other third comes in on her other flank, with Victoria settling her chin on top of Amy’s thin curly hair.

It’s hard to believe there was a time when Amy didn’t like me, no, she didn’t just not like me, I could see the hate in her whenever I was around. But now she’s a piece of me, she’s the girl I owe my new body to, the one who made me realize I could enjoy just being myself.

Our circumstances were more alike than either of us knew, she was drowning in her work, terrified that if she stopped for even a moment, someone would die. And I was already far beneath the waves, already drowned but pretending I was alright, pretending I was a normal guy.

Victoria was our lifeboat and at first, we both didn’t think there was enough room. We both wanted the other gone, or at least, I certainly did once I actually unraveled what Amy wanted from Victoria.

And on top of that, we both hated being on that lifeboat. We both thought we didn’t deserve to be there, to be with Victoria. We had the same mind when it came to her, we were taking advantage of her, of her optimism and strength, her bravery and kindness, we were leeches.

And that started a vicious cycle, of Victoria and I getting together, the relationship making me feel like a human being and then… those feelings would make me realize that I didn’t deserve her. And so we’d fight, we’d break up, we’d get back together and the whole time Amy was there, barely holding on.

It wasn’t until last Halloween that we decided to love ourselves, to let ourselves be happy without feeling like monsters and well… I happen to like what we are right now.

I owe these girls so much but… Brian’s story isn’t mine to tell, I’ll let him explain it.

“Foil says a Trump hit Parian, some power scrambler or blocker. It’s only supposed to last for twenty four hours so… maybe it’ll wear off?”

And there’s Victoria, ever optimistic even when things feel bleak.

“Best thing we can do right now is observe,” I chime in, “We should stay here for now and monitor things.”

“Should we bring the others in?” Amy mumbles, “Vex or Chariot could help?”

“Let’s try to keep things quiet for right now.” I answer, closing my eyes and trying my best to get lost in the feeling of her in my arms. "But set up a meeting for tomorrow, Lisa will thank us later."

"Okay," Amy nods, sighing before she claps her hands. "Let's try to keep busy, Victoria, try to get the couch back in place, I'll grab a broom, and Diane can help with the big stuff."

"You've got it," I agree at the same time Victoria says "on it."

The three of us separate and I try not to think about everything I just heard. Alec is gone, Heartbreaker was in the city and they didn't tell us, the Butcher is gone and—

No, I have to keep my emotions in check. I have to.

With powers like mine, it would be easy to fall into those same pitfalls.

I'm picking up a chunk of glass from one of the second story railings and I try not to fixate on certain features in my reflection.

The pale blue eyes that look nothing like Arthur Stansfield's mossy green gaze, the black curly hair that isn't anything like dad's thin blonde locks.

He's still my dad but that thought hasn't been the same since mom died, since she told me who she met the same year I was born.

A charming man in Montreal, a king of hearts, Nikos Vasil.