Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The garden of the Hebert house, whilst small, was large enough to host a small family meet up every year.

The smell of cooking meat filled the air, the faint sizzling was accompanied by conversation. Normally, conversation would be much louder, but this year, the garden was far emptier than normal.  

With the recent death of Annette Hebert, neither Taylor's grandfather nor grandmother had bothered to attend. Normally, her mother would be in the middle of it all, keeping conversation going and greasing the social wheels... but now her mother was deep in the ground, never to again grace their home.

It was sad, that without her mother, her maternal grandparents  had no desire to visit. Like, was Taylor so utterly worthless to them that she didn't matter? 

Right now, she felt so numb to everything that she was able to passively observe her feelings in the same way a lighthouse keeper may note a passing ship.

Of course, she didn't know the full history behind the drama between her father and that side of the family, but didn't they love her at all!? Couldn't they put aside whatever bad history there was between them and her father just to say hello?

Instead, the only family who had come to visit were her uncle Keith and his husband, Arthur.

“Hmm... oh yeah, now that's how you cook a burger!”

In the tradition of middle-aged men across America, her father and her uncle's husband had put themselves in charge of the grill, and were discussing the meat and how well along it was coming along. 

Arthur was trying really hard to distract her dad from things... he had always been a good man, keenly in touch with his feelings. 

Her father wasn't sleeping, but something about the experience of entertaining and cooking was bringing out some small spark of himself again... even if it would soon die out. 

Taylor had been trying to make him smile for ages without real success; was she doing something wrong?

She looked down at her paper plate. 

The burger wasn't cooked properly; it was burned on the outside and kind of raw in the middle. Unbidden, Taylor remembered the words her mother had once said to her, just a few summers ago:

“The moment fire's involved, the men always suddenly seem to think they are Michelin star chefs.” 

She'd said that with abundant wry humour as the two of them had watched her father absolutely massacre a sausage. It had ended up utterly black on one side and pink on the other, even as he proudly declared his prowess over the grill. 

It was a nice memory, back when things were simple.

“Heyo, kiddo.”

Taylor glanced up to see her cncle Keithstanding beside her, a plate in hand. With a gentle smile on his lips, he took a seat beside her on the concrete step into the garden. 

Across the garden, Arthur tried to flip a burger and promptly sent it careening to the ground. 

“Hey Keith,” she said, ignoring the gastronomic massacre. 

She'd never gotten used to thinking of him as an uncle; he had always just been 'Keith'. 

“Hey, Taylor. How are you doing?” he asked.

She shrugged, not quite sure how to respond. What was she supposed to say to that? 

'I feel hollow and empty all the time, everything feels like it's moving too quickly past me and like I can't grip it at all. I hate this. I just want everything to stop and slow down but there's no time and mum's already in the ground but I feel like she'll walk back in through the door at any moment. And school's bad and my best friend's been weird ever since I came back from camp a few weeks ago and I'm worried.'

She hoped it was just a phase, that maybe Emma had been distracted with family stuff, and she could go over for a sleepover some time soon.

A long moment passed without reply, before Keith reached out and put an arm around her shoulder and pulling her into a hug. His chest was solid; she'd forgotten just how good a hugger he was, and for a moment she tensed, just a little, before she gave him a squeeze back.

“It's okay, Taylor... if ever you need somebody to talk to, you know where I am, you know?” he said, voice soft. 

“Yeah, I do...” she really did appreciate it... after the crash she'd ended up only talking to a few people, struggling to get over things. Keith had come by the day after it happened, grabbing the next flight from New York and taking a holiday from work to spend time with the two of them and help organise things. 

Speaking of, she might as well try to keep the conversation going.

“... How's work been?” 

That was a question adults liked to ask, right? It got them distracted for a bit. 

Evidently, her ruse to move the topic on had not slipped past him, as Keith looked at her for a long, knowing second, before he chuckled. 

“Same old, you'd be amazed how much paperwork you have to do when you work for the PRT!” he chuckled. 

She didn't really know exactly what Keith did, she was pretty sure the term he had used was 'PRT agent.' But whenever she pressed for details, or asked what he did on a day-to-day basis, it was always boring things like meetings this, paperwork that.

“Is it fun? Or just... boring stuff?” she asked. 

When she was young, she'd always wanted to be like Alexandria, but the more her uncle described PRT work, the more boring it sounded. She supposed that if you were a hero, you were more involved with the Protectorate side of things, right? 

Heroes probably didn't do all their own paperwork, too busy doing... well, hero stuff.  

“Oh, it's a mix of excitement and mundane things... oh, here, this one is actually cooked,” he said, pausing to slip her his burger, and giving her a faint wink. 

She took a bite. 

It was good. Better than the other patty on her plate

For the rest of the afternoon, she chatted with him about what it was like to work for the PRT, and just for a little while, she managed to forget a little about the sadnesses in her life. 

Just over a year after that summer day, it all became too much.

The blue canvas of the sky above Taylor was growing darker as she flew higher and higher into the sky, far away from the ground and all of its problems. 

She had no idea where she was going or exactly what she was doing, she couldn't see the ground below her due to the sea of clouds that carpeted the world.  

The day she had chosen to break down utterly had been yet another horrible, dour day. The world was bleak, grey and sad, it was a day of realising that no matter what, she couldn't trust anybody even to help her at her most desperate. 

But above the clouds, the world was beautiful, unblemished.

Her entire world right now was an infinite gradient of blue, stretching from so light it may well be white, to so dark that it could only be the darkness of the cosmos high above. A cosmos so far away from her... and yet, it was so close that with a moment's thought she could escape this world forever.  

Great columns of clouds rose around her. They rose like waves in an ocean full of foam, frozen in time and just for her to enjoy.

It was all so beautiful, it was a heady distraction from the mental breakdown she had been experiencing just half an hour ago. 

What was she doing?

She was running away like a coward.

She just couldn't face it all.

If she had stayed, then she would have been in so much trouble. They would have arrested her and thrown her in prison or something; she'd left Winslow in chaos, with alarms ringing and people screaming and shouting in fear. She wasn't even sure what it was that had finally pushed her over the edge, it was all such a blurred mess in her head.

Before she had really known what she was doing, she had transformed into pure light and blasted through the ceiling, so desperate to escape, to be away from the place where nobody cared.

And now, here she was.

She transformed her body back to normal and allowed herself to plummet through the air, dropping like a stone. 

Gravity embraced her utterly, and she felt keenly that utterly destructive instinct and call to just keep falling forever, that call of the void one felt at the edge of a tall building. She fell for what felt like an eternity, watching as the clouds below grew closer by the second.

Before she hit the sea of clouds, she transformed back into pure light.

She could fly as fast as she needed, weaving between cloud formations so quickly that no living creature could match her. 

She felt so... so... frustrated by everything!

By how hopeless everything was!

Of all the fates in the world, Taylor had gained Parahuman powers and promptly scuppered any opportunity she had to make a good impression. She'd destroyed federal property and ran, like a criminal. She should go back, she should do something, anything to make this situation right!

Instead, she screamed in irritation and pointed at a cloud, thrusting her hand out and transforming her finger into light, containing all the energy that just wanted to be directed somewhere.

She poured her everything into it before releasing it.

A radiant lance burst free from her finger, one that crossed the space of miles instantly. Within that column of white and gray cloud, the light burst in an explosion.

God... fucking... DAMMIT!

She set off again, anxious. 

In a moment, she had crossed a continent.

She didn't understand her power on an intellectual level, but she had an innate sort of knowledge of it: transformation, manipulation, absorption of light. She could become it, concentrate it, direct it in herself.

Somewhere over the Midwest, Taylor floated, staring upwards into space. 

The world above her was dark, yet clear. Right now, she wanted to be like that.

And so, she stared, hanging serenely like a suspended star.

Breathing was unnecessary like this, nor was anything but a state of pure thought, of empty, hollow reflection as she considered her options, and despaired at most of them. 

“Taylor.”

She whipped around. 

She hadn't heard somebody else joining her, and when she saw who it was—

“K-Keith?”

Indeed, her uncle was hovering a few metres away.

“But... You're... a Parahuman,” she said, dumbfounded. 

“... I kind of forgot I am out of uniform right now,” he chuckled, face falling a little as if moderately embarrassed, before shrugging. “Well, out of costume I'm Keith Hebert, but in costume, well, I'm Legend.”

It was such an utterly forward statement that it took a few moments for her to work it out. The ever-vague descriptions of what he did for a job beyond being a PRT agent, the odd times that he could not make family gatherings or could not be reached with calls.

And in that time, Keith floated a few feet closer.

“Listen, Taylor, we need to discuss what has happened—” he began. 

Gods, how surreal, to just be floating somewhere discussing the fact that she had powers, that Keith also had powers. It was all so much!

“I can't go back!” Perhaps it wasn't best to near shout at her uncle... at Legend, but she couldn't help it. 

“Taylor, it's alright.”

“How's it alright!? I blew up my school, I... I don't want to go back!” the air around her was humming, her body was radiating light uncontrollably as if she were some sort of human lightbulb. She tried to lower the brightness, she wasn't sure how, it was just something she knew how to do, but then it just came back again.

Keith... Legend... floated forwards and pulled her a hug. 

It was... the very last thing she had expected to come out of this entire situation.

She floated there, trying to digest everything she was feeling as those familiar arms came around her shoulders and squeezed her tight. Legend, Keith, smelled of that familiar cologne, which was just a little too sharp on the nostrils, but which she had come to associate with the man over the years. 

And somehow, it smelled like home on some level. 

No, not home. 

Just... reassurance. 

“What are you thinking, Taylor?”

That question had been posed to her by her father, hours after Legend talked her back into returning to Brockton Bay. 

The man had not joined them; he was too busy handling the clean-up of what had gone down in Winslow, and Taylor was in her family home, wondering exactly what would happen next.

The arrival of Legend rather smoothed things, or at least, went a long way to reassuring people that everything was in hand and would be handled properly. After all, how often did a member of the Triumvirate come to visit Brockton Bay? Sure, a school building had been damaged, but it was nothing that money couldn't handle... right?

The problem was the number of people who knew the truth about her now. 

She was a Parahuman. 

Kids knew, they would tell others, the internet would probably be ablaze with people discussing it all—

“I don't know dad... I don't know what to do now,” she admitted, staring blankly at the opposite wall.

It wasn't like she could go back to her previous life now, and just going to Arcadia... that wouldn't work either, right? 

The PRT would be able to do damage control, right? Like, surely random kids gaining powers happened in public spaces often enough for there to be procedures for all this?

Her father nodded in response to her statement. 

The reveal that his brother was Legend didn't seem to have fazed the man a huge deal. Actually, he had been more concerned about her. It was rather heartwarming to see him push aside the strongest Blaster in the USA to focus on her, as if Legend were a troublesome puppy in the way.

“The Wards?”

She rubbed at her arm, fingers transforming to light for a moment out of nerves. 

“I'm not sure about that...” she mumbled. “I don't think I'll get much of a choice about it, though... you know, I might be, like, needed to join the PRT to stay out of trouble.”

She hated the idea of not having much choice in the matter.

Still, having somebody like her Keith as one of the bigwigs of it all would help somewhat, right? She didn't like the idea of being like Emma, being one of those people who could just get away with things by batting her eyes and letting her father handle things...

But neither did she want to get in trouble for what she had done to Winslow.

Things would be alright with Keith to supervise her, right? 

Chapter Text

In the end, Taylor joined the New York Wards. 

She really did not want to deal with the drama of being a teenage superhero. If she were to try and be a hero, then she would much rather do it alone rather than having to rely on others. 

But unfortunately, her 'Trigger Event' had been quite public, and it had created a lot of questions about what would happen to her. 

Her name wasn't publicly known, but she knew for sure that a number of students knew about what had happened. Emma, Julia, Sophia, probably Madison as well, all the people responsible for her gaining powers would not want to stop just there, would they?

At least now, she had her Keith to help out. 

A discreet conversation here or there—“you should have told me about this much sooner, young lady!”—and things were sorted out. 

Swept under the rug. 

... Was it nepotism, for Legend to take her under his wing and organise for Taylor to be a Ward in New York, rather than Brockton Bay?

More to the point, how much did she care about the fact that she wouldn't be helping the city of her birth, but instead another?

The answer was, she tried not to think about it.

And it wasn't even a difficult commute from her home in BB; being able to move at the speed of light was a real perk when it came to transport. She'd probably never need to get a driving licence.

Once her outfit was ready and things were in place, Keith... Legend, decided to introduce her to the Wards group that she would be part of.

She stood to his side, rigid and tense, as she tried not to breathe too hard in case it drew too much attention.

“Team, this is Glint, the newbie I mentioned the other day. I'm mentoring her because our powers are similar, but please make sure she settles in alright.”

That was the introduction she was given. No mention of their relation, just a smooth explanation for why they might be seen together. 

“We'll take care of her, sir!”

The speaker was a young man who wore armour like that of a medieval knight, which was scratched in multiple places. Had he been in recent fights, or was it part of the 'look' of a weather beaten but undeterred knight?

“Glint, this is Jouster, he'll be your captain from now on. Behind him are the rest of the team.”

This was the Lancer team of the New York PRT's Wards. According to what her uncle had said, the city had no less than five groups of them, all arranged according to their abilities. The team that she would be part of was specialised in fast response, it made sense, right, with how quickly she could move.

Beside Jouster were the four other members, ranging from about twelve to seventeen years of age. Four boys, one girl, all looking at her. 

It made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end; after so long being bullied, she had gotten so used to trying to avoid attention that to be so keenly scrutinised in this way made her feel as though she were being X-Rayed.  

She was a Parahuman. A hero. A Ward. What was getting to know her future team compared to the things she would do in the future? Sure, she didn't want to deal with drama, but maybe they would be nice...

Jouster gave her what was probably supposed to be a winning smile.

She thought that it looked rather forced.

“Hey, I'm Jouster, this is Stallion, my second in command. And there we've got Sublimate, Off-Kilter, and Radial,” the young man explained, gesturing towards her new teammates.

Lamely, she raised a hand, said some generic words of greeting, everything that could be expected from her. 

To be honest, after so long, she rather felt silly doing so, as if it were the action of a puppet controlled by habit, not something that she was actively doing.

Were they already judging her, she wondered? What sort of expressions were they wearing behind those masks? 

There were comments and greetings from the other members of the team, they were probably only being friendly because Legend was beside her...

“C'mon, we'll show you the Wards space,” Jouster said, indicating for everyone to follow him. Legend moved to her side and gave a tiny nod and a hand gesture for him to walk in front of her.

After a moment's pause, she did so, feeling rather surrounded and enclosed as the other members of the Lancer team. 

The only girl of the group, Off-Kilter, sent her a smile. 

“So, what can you do, Glint?” she asked. 

She sounded older than her.

She took a deep breath. 

“I can manipulate and interact with light by turning into it,” she began to explain, remembering to try and speak slowly and clearly rather than rush it. “So I can move really quick, fire beams of light... if I turn into it, then most things just go right through me and my thoughts are superfast as well? I'm still working it all out.”

A considering hum.

Was that good?

Bad?

Were they categorising her, judging her on what she had said, was this some sort of test to see how well she would fit in? What if she didn't? Legend had said that she might suit the Archer team as well, her beams weren't as powerful or versatile as his by any means but—

“How fast can you move? Making sure we can coordinate is important. We're all Movers, but we all have different sorts of speed,” Jouster questioned from ahead. He turned his head a little so that his angled visor and helmet glinted in the harsh overhead lights. 

It seemed like a logical thing to ask, really. No point one person turning up well ahead of everyone else and promptly be left stranded without backup. 

Brockton Bay had a few speedsters with Velocity, Assault and Battery... oh, and Dauntless as well. Actually, the Bay really was quite well served for fast response...

“Um, I can fly around the world seven times in a second,” she explained. “It doesn't feel like a second to me, everything feels normal to me, but... yeah.”

There was a long pause.

A whistle from somebody at the back of the group.

“Hot damn girl, you're going to make the rest of us feel bad!”

She found herself rubbing her arm awkwardly. This really had been a bad idea—

Her uncle spoke up.

“Glint may have a very high Mover rating and a versatile power, but it's important she is supported. Especially if it takes time to get used to, I had a lot of problems doing so with mine after all,” he said.

“Really? As in, the getting used to part?”

The question was posed by one of the members of her new team, Radial.

“Oh, very much, the first time I went flying I accelerated too much and almost hit a mountain!” Legend laughed. 

She wasn't sure whether that had actually happened... but she was glad for her Keith drawing the group's attention away from herself. 

Swallowing thickly, Taylor pushed through and gave a forced chuckle that she really did not feel, and they continued on their way. 

With five different teams of Wards, the New York PRT building was huge and well served, the facilities both complete and at times esoteric... like the zero-gravity room they had for some reason? 

The fact that there were more teenaged superheroes in the New York Wards than there were Protectorate and Ward members in her Brockton Bay was rather strange to imagine, and she was going to be surrounded by them soon. 

All the time.

It only took until the end of her first week for some of the illusions to be lifted.

She had been taking her lunch, sat alone at a table in the New York PRT's cafeteria, when somebody from the Hammer team walked over. The young man looked like a poster child or stereotype for a Brute. He had shoulders as broad as a shed and a chin that looked like it could deflect an anti-tank round, and, by the looks of it, may well have done so in the recent past.

“... Hey. Are you Legend's kid?” he asked, not bothering with something so mundane as an introduction.

“Huh?” she had replied, intelligently, through a mouthful of sandwich. 

In the distance, she could hear whispers. 

She glanced to the side, and saw several other Wards all looking their way, evidently curious about their conversation. 

Perhaps it was her paranoia from the bullying back in Brockton Bay, but her immediate thought was that he had been set up or challenged to ask the question. 

Her first instinct was to transform into light and disappear; in the time it would take the nervous signal to travel from their optic nerves to their brains, Taylor could be on the moon if she needed. Hell, she might even be able to get further? It was rather impossible to test just how quick she was; modern science wasn't advanced enough. 

The speaker repeated his question, leaning forward over the table.

“Are you Legend's daughter? There's a betting pool going around, you know, similar power, is mentoring you, stuff like that.”

She... what?

Wasn't this against the rules about asking questions?

Nobody on the Lancer team had tried to ask about her personal circumstances... was it really so unusual for people with similar powers to mentor each another?

“No,” she replied, and it wasn't like she was lying. “He just happened to be the only person who could catch up with me when I first got my powers,” she said, perhaps needing to stretch the truth just a little. 

There was a momentary pause there.

“Really? Because your powers are really similar,” he pressed, leaning over her to lower his voice, as if they were two friends sharing some hot gossip rather than perfect strangers who had never met before today.

A surge of irritation rose to the fore.

“My powers are also like some of the powers in New Wave over in Brockton Bay, unless you're gonna say I am one of their kids from an affair with Legend?” Taylor snapped, defensively. 

Perhaps it was a little unwise to use that example. Kids always made up all sorts of rumours and lies, and she really did not need people to believe that she might be known as the love child of Legend and Brandish. 

“So nope, I'm not Legend's kid, I just have a very similar power. Bound to happen, right? I mean, how many things can you do with light?”

The guy shrugged noncommittally, evidently disappointed by the lack of confirmation, and returned to his group. 

She watched the way he integrated back into conversation, the group occasionally glancing her way. 

At that moment, she found a part of her stomach sinking. 

How could she be surrounded by so many people right now, yet also feel like an island? It was Winslow all over again, alone, looked at, speculated about.

She took another bite of her food, chewing slowly.

It all stung a little. 

She wasn't her Uncle's child, obviously, but it did rather bring a question to the surface that she'd been trying to avoid dwelling on; the way she got this opportunity. It was undeniable that, for how useful and varied her power was, Taylor had this position because of nepotism. 

Not any special attribute of her own.

Legend had sponsored her and was acting as her official mentor until she found her feet. And given what was clearly being discussed, people were thinking that was all she was worth.

Or was she reading too much into it, and it was just residual paranoia? 

Her stomach coiled unpleasantly.

Emma had gotten away with so much of what she had done because her dad was a lawyer, and could throw his weight around.

Had Taylor basically done the same to get out of trouble and get away from her problems in the bay? Had she never gained a power, then would she still be there, still suffering in Winslow the same way as she had been before?

... Yeah, she would be. 

It was only because of her power and connection that she was special at all. 

Taylor didn't feel hungry after thinking about that.

She'd save the sandwich for later, no point wasting good food after all, and after wrapping it up and securing it on her person, she departed. 

Taylor left for a study space on the fifth floor. There were desks there that she could do her homework on; in her new private school, paid for by the PRT, and maybe focusing on that would distract her from the intrusive thoughts.

Chapter Text

Taylor was so fast that she left everyone else in the dust. 

Short of instant teleportation, there was absolutely nothing that could match her. This was both a help and a hindrance. 

“We've got trouble at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, attempted robbery. Seems to be some independent villain,” said a calm, clear voice into Taylor's ear from a speaker in her helmet. “We need you to cover the various entrances. Keep a safe distance from them but remain in close contact.”

Art theft really seemed an odd choice as a route for making money.

Like, cash was immediately useful to anybody, but high-end art? You needed to find a buyer, one with discretion and a lot of cash... or already have one lined up. Frankly, Taylor could think of a half-dozen better ways to put her power to use to earn money than by stealing art.

When the call sounded, she'd jolted in place and accidentally blinded a couple of people around her with an involuntary flash of light. 

Anyway, back in the present.

Her fellow members of the Lancer Team were all nodding as they headed down to the entrance to the PRT building, hearing the same instructions as her.

At their head, Jouster nodded, although the speaker wasn't around to see it.

Having emerged from the back of the building, they were ready for orders. 

“Alright, team, we're going to be locking down escape roads. Sublimate, Off-Kilter, you'll both be with me helping to cover the main entrance, we'll take the normal route north.”

Then, their leader glanced to the rest of them. 

“Stallion, you're at the back entrance near the American Wing. Since you're the slowest, you head off now.” 

The second in command gave a cheery two finger salute. For a moment, he was utterly still, steadily vibrating in place, more and more by the second, before, in a blur accompanied by a loud 'bzzzzt!' he burst into motion, shooting off down the road. 

“Radial, you're on the south side. Glint, seeing as you can fly, can you keep in the air and cover the back entrance with Stallion, near the obelisk?”

Transforming into light was an experience that she could not explain, it was fundamentally incomparable. No human could possibly keep up with moving so quickly, but some part of her power allowed her to do so. When she transformed into light, the entire world basically stopped as she moved... or was it that her thoughts and perception also occurred at the speed of light as well? 

Well, it was all the same in the end when it came down to it. 

She wasn't a Parahuman scientist, after all.

The world was frozen, she moved and darted and bobbed so quickly that the average human eye wouldn't even see a stream of light. 

In a fraction of the time it took Jouster to pronounce the 'sk' at the end of obelisk, Taylor had disappeared from PRT Headquarters, reached the Museum, looked around for the Obelisk and moved to float over it.

“Okay, I'm here,” she spoke up over the headset.

A moment's pause. 

“Wait, we all need to be in position at the same time! Don't jump the gun; you're there without backup!”

There was rising panic in his voice. 

But they knew how fast she was! She hadn't jumped the gun, she had just gotten here to do what she was told! Like, it wasn't as if the speed of light could be slowed! 

Vexed and with nerves running just a little high, she reappeared at Jouster's side, as if she had never been gone at all.

“Okay then, I'll wait,” she said, trying to sound calm.

There were looks exchanged by the remaining members of the group.

“The rest of us will get into place, and then we'll tell you that we're there so you can join us at the same time, Glint,” Jouster declared. “Can you wait here until we give the signal?”

“Okay.”

She tried not to sound bitter as she watched the trio of them head off, in their various ways, putting their powers to use, whilst she just... stood around. 

Taylor tapped her foot, waiting patiently. 

She could be there.

The minutes were heavy, leaden blocks she had to endure while the team got into place. She could have flown through a glass window and dealt with this situation by now if they let her! 

Hell, she could have stolen every single painting from the museum if she really wanted to... but making that sort of comment aloud was probably an awful idea. 

So she waited, the fastest thing in the world held back by the slowness of others. 

Maybe she could go and grab a sandwich or chocolate bar in the interim... no, stay on duty, don't flit over to the vending machines. They kept telling her not to use her power to just appear at places, that it could alarm people or distress them if she just seemed to be there where she hadn't before.

When she did get the call, a minute later, to join them, she gave it a second before she replied. Part of it was pettiness, the other was... well, to feign a degree of travel time when there hadn't. 

It sounded weird, but she'd never realised just how much time was wasted by needing to travel places.

Right now, floating above Cleopatra's Needle, Taylor had so long to wait. She had to watching as, by miniscule increments, the world around her shifted and changed. It was a massive, unedited photograph that she was forced to examine. When your perception and thoughts could keep up with the speed of light, everything was so... utterly... slow.

And yet, in the end, the situation resolved without any need for them at all. 

That effort to coordinate and be in place wasn't necessary, as Protectorate members had managed to get into the museum and handle the heist without issue.

So Taylor had ended up hovering in midair, watching it all go down below her. 

Well, at least she was being seen doing something, even if she wished it could be something more concrete.

From high above, she could see her teammates meeting back up in a loose huddle on the ground, but she hadn't received a call to come down to join them. Should she go down and do so? Were they waiting for her to take notice and do so? 

Was this a test of her observation skills? 

Or were they standing there talking, discussing her behind her back? 

She wasn't so sure that she wanted to go down and find out... but waiting up here, thinking so much quicker than normal people, gave her so much more time to doubt.

By contrast, when she could act on her own, her power was incredible. 

“Emergency response request, Fléchette and Shelter have been ambushed and are currently in need of assistance, can anyone on duty with Mover ratings respond?”

The common room for the New York Wards had gone into silence as people listened in; most of the various teams on standby had either been chatting or playing games when the call came in. 

Taylor didn't know the first name, but the second, Shelter, was the team captain for the Archer group. 

Beyond herself and Sublimate, the rest of the Lancers were off-duty.

Her fellow Lancer glanced at her. 

“Glint here, I can be there at once,” Taylor said into the earpiece, not bothering with standing up.

“I can as well, but I need to grab my stuff,” Sublimate added. He was no more than thirteen, and a Mover 6. The only downside to his power was that he needed time to summon his equipment from 'windows' he cut into the air. 

A moment's pause.

Was the dispatcher weighing up the pros and cons of sending somebody so new into the fray, when by the sounds of it, this was really quite serious?

“Glint, please support Fléchette and Shelter. We have other units heading out, no more than a minute away.”

Finally, an opportunity to do something.

Directions were given, and as the other Wards around her watched, she transformed and through the window, not having bothered to stand at all.

She was still learning to navigate New York City. 

Even having been a Ward here for three weeks, she still found it a little confusing. But moving at the speed of light made it effortless to check a dozen or more road signs in a very brief period of time. 

When she arrived, it was to a rather perilous scene. 

The pair of Wards were outnumbered, cornered and clearly on the back foot. Shelter was on the ground, having been knocked down or pushed, and looming over her was a giant, easily five or so metres tall. Behind him were two others, one wearing a rabbit-mask and the other in a much more nondescript outfit. 

An enormous hand was reaching down to grab Shelter, frozen in time to Taylor's perspective---

She moved in front of the giant, floating in the air. 

He wore a solid metal mask, blocky, roughly shaped. Was it intentional, to convey a certain image? 

Instinct guided her. In this light-bourne state, a lot of things made sense and new instincts overcame her. 

Her hand raised, she pointed a finger at the forehead, barely a few inches away. 

It would be so easy to just... 

Her finger lit up. 

She could blast him point-blank, send a beam right through his skull, or punch him in the nose at close to the speed of light. Doing so would almost certainly end this threat right here, reduce the man's heads to a fine mist, unless he had some truly extraordinary Brute power. It would be so easy; in the time that she'd spent considering what to do, less than the smallest iota of an actual second had passed; his eye wouldn't have even begun to process her presence, let alone sent a message to the brain.

But she'd been told under no uncertain terms that her power was absolutely lethal if used improperly.  

The thing about moving at the speed of light was that when she did something physical, she did so at superhuman speeds. Speed and mass interacted in strange ways, by any logic, the moment she transformed from light into something solid at speed, her body should probably explode. 

Her power protected her from the consequences of such, but not other objects.

But most people freeze up or react with a pause in response to something utterly unexpected... like a flash bang inches from your face. 

So that was what she did. 

A bright yet harmless flash of light filled the air. 

Perception accelerated as Taylor transformed back to matter to see the effectiveness of her action.

Sure, she could wait in her Breaker form, but then it would take a relative eternity. 

A bellow of surprise; the giant responded by covering his eyes and shouting in surprise, his two companions jolted in place, allowing the other two Wards to recover themselves.

Shelter rolled in place, the other Ward, Fléchette, surged forward to grab her arm and haul her up.

A meaty fist the width of a moped came swinging Taylor's way. 

She transformed again, the hand began passing right through her.

Oh... right. 

Taylor stared down at the hand moving so very slowly through her body that it was akin to observing continental drift.

Really, she should not take the risk of something hitting her. Powers could interact strangely, after all, what if he could disable powers just by touching her? But as the giant's hand passed through her torso with agonising slowness, no such effect occurred. 

She probably should just move out of the way, but it would be a lot more intimidating for the blow to just go right through her, make her seem invincible. 

Still. 

The big guy was flailing, the two Wards were pulling themselves together, the other two villains were in the back. She should probably just deal with him, right, before he could cause some real damage? Not to her, but to others that he might hit by accident... 

She moved to his side and kicked at the back of the big guy's leg, accelerating her foot just a little to increase its momentum. Nowhere near the speed of light, not even the tiniest fraction of such---

It less destabilised the man than absolutely flipped him. There was a shout of surprise as he cartwheeled through the air, his head smacking against the tarmac in a way that made Taylor wince. She was pretty sure that there was a dent in the tarmac, and suddenly, he was shrinking back to a more normal size as a groan filled the air.

There was a groan, but he was still breathing fine...he'd probably be okay, right?

“Retreat, retreat!”

Taylor glanced over at the other two Villains. The one with the Rabbit Mask was backing away and giving the order, turning tail to run. 

In her ear was chatter, commands and instructions all rushing in, Shelter was feeding information back to command hurriedly.

“Glint, hold position until help can arrive!”

It had only been a few seconds, but it had already been an eternity for her, in her Breaker state, that she had almost forgotten the fact that there was somebody in her ear trying to organise the response to all of this. 

“But they're getting away,” she replied, watching as the remaining pair fled. 

It would take barely any effort to restrain them.

She raised a hand. One shot to the back. Hell, she could move there near-instantly and, with one mundane slap or trip, delay them long enough until help could arrive.

Capturing the other two would be really good, no, it would be exceptional, it was the logical thing to do, but---

“Glint. Hold position!”

It came through with more steel this time. 

Taylor watched as the two villains got away, every step they took preventable.

She'd helped. 

This was still a victory in the end... just not a complete one. 

They had the big guy, the one who was reaching down to grab a Wards captain. But the fact that she was supposed to allow the other two to escape rubbed her the wrong way. 

It would take so little time to do something.

Less than a second.

Faster than the shrill-voiced woman in her ear could even process. 

She just about managed to restrain herself. 

It left a sour taste in her mouth, but she'd signed up for this hero life... if she was independent, perhaps she could have dealt with the stragglers easily, but for now... now she just had to watch them escape.

She floated there, feeling the seconds drag by. 

A private eternity to consider and think, alone from the rest of the world.

The two escaping villains had the audacity to look back at her, to see her floating there, watching them go... yeah, think about it, idiots. She could capture them any moment, it would take almost no effort at all... hell, she could move over, take off their masks, look at their faces and then put them back before she could properly process what had happened. 

There was so much she could do and she could do nothing.

'All that's needed for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.' 

Her mother once said that. 

The faint glow radiating off her body dimmed, just a little.

She glanced back at the two Wards. Shelter was clearly the elder of the two, late teens judging by her build, and looked winded by the experience. They really must have been ambushed and taken by surprise.

It was pointless for her to wait in her Breaker form, every second was dragging, she might as well just be physical and let time pass normally.

So she did so, feet touching down on the ground again and crossing her arms to wait for the reinforcements to arrive, glancing down occasionally at the Parahuman she had knocked out. 

Might as well put him in the recovery position for now. 

The reinforcements arrived not long after she did so. They burst onto the scene with all the grace and timing of somebody who had completely missed a deadline and now hurried to try and make it at the last moment, only to find everything already closed up. Oh, they really did send a whole brigade of people, didn't they? 

From there everything was a mess of securing, containing, and bringing in the villain that she'd dealt with. 

The debriefing of the events helped to make it feel like a victory, and less of a wasted opportunity.

Chapter Text

The New York Wards got new members quite often. 

In a city containing eight million people, it was bound to happen that plenty of people would trigger and gain powers. Further, even in that number, it was inevitable that some of those people would be children or teenagers, and would be of a heroic disposition. 

Indeed, that was Lily's own story, wasn't it?

All this in mind, she hadn't paid much attention when the Lancers got a new member. Maybe in some small city PRT, the arrival of the New Ward would completely upend the social dynamic of the group, but when there were multiple teams of Wards?

Not so much.

She'd been too busy trying to settle down in the Archer team to take much notice at the time, to be honest.

It was the third time that she'd been shifted to a new squad, having spent a few months in the Hammer team.  Now here she was, once more adjusting to new people. 

She couldn't tell whether the higher ups wanted her to gain plenty of experience with different teams, or if they had no idea where to place her. 

It was exhausting, either way. 

As a result of this new adjustment, she only heard second hand stories about the newbie.

But a few words about the newbie did reach her.

“Heard Legend's overseeing the newbie or something... few folks think she's his kid.”

'Well, good for some,' she supposed. 

Sure would be convenient to have a member of the Triumvirate as a parent, life would be on easy street. The kid would never need to worry about status or money, and with powers as well? 

Talk about a breeze.

This somewhat cynical impression lasted until she saw the Cape in action. 

Lily had no idea how she and Shelter had been ambushed so easily on a 'safe' route, but they'd been left scrambling as March lectured and tried to drag them away. 

And that was when the reinforcement had just appeared. 

The newbie had made it look so easy. She just appeared, blinded the big guy and then, with a frankly nonchalant-looking kick, sent the giant Brute spinning head over heels. 

It had taken less than two seconds from start to finish.

And the person saving them just radiated this feeling, or impression, of boredom in it all. 

Was it boredom? Lily wasn't sure quite what to call it. Their saviour didn't even try to move when the giant blindly struck and swung for her, not moving a hair's breadth as the hand struck and passed through her glowing form. 

Perhaps it was just pure, unadulterated confidence in herself.

And as if that wasn't enough, she'd pointed a glowing finger at March.

Another flash of light? Perhaps a laser, like her mentor?

“Glint, hold position!”

“But they're getting away.”

It was as though the other Ward were commenting on the weather or some other, vaguely interesting fact. 

Lily had watched with a strange, almost muted fascination as the floating girl visibly weighed up what to do next. In the chaos of the situation, there was an utter control and serenity to it all.

She'd relented, and watched passively as the two villains got away rather than opening fire or teleporting or whatever it was she could do. She'd just... floated there, deep in thought for a good ten seconds.

It was only later, after they were gone and a full debriefing had taken place, that Lily thought to ask the question that had been bugging her. 

“Why did command let those two go?” Lily had asked, afterwards, to which Shelter had given her a faintly weary look.

“Didn't want us to follow into a trap, or Glint to use her full power until she's got more experience, I guess.”

Well, that made sense.

After all, just because they had reinforcements, that didn't mean that they were safe, right? 

The way the other Ward could have done something, yet didn't, there was just something... off. That expression and body position was that of somebody who wanted to do something, but held back.

Lily had left it there. 

Or tried to, at least. 

She provided her own report on what had happened, praised the other Ward, Glint, her name was, and then had to fill out some paperwork. Just to confirm that her statements were backed up and verified, she didn't see her saviour at any point, it was as if she had disappeared off the face of the planet. 

A little numbed and still trying to process things, Lily finished out the day in something of a tired daze. 

That night, when Lily got back to the latest foster home, she retreated to her room as usual and lay out on her bed, staring at the ceiling. 

The drama of the day melted away now that she was alone. 

She sighed and relaxed into the slightly too soft mattress. 

It still smelled of the last kid to have been here, the last foster child the family had taken on. Apparently, said kid was now an adult and living their own life as an accountant.

Good for them, genuinely.

But it would have been nice to have a new mattress. 

Very little about her 'home life' was new at this point, be it the clothes she wore, the bed she slept on, or the experience of being shuffled along to the next when, inevitably, they moved her again. 

So she would take it day by day. 

Now that she was alone, she couldn't stop thinking, and those thoughts were so very incredibly loud. She'd never really liked to be alone; she was old enough to know that it was probably some remnant or impact from her childhood, and on the other, it just was part of who she was. 

And yet, a contradictory part of her didn't want to go downstairs to join the other kids and Mr. and Mrs. Harrison, either. 

They were better than the last place, but it was clear that they had read over her file and seen the long, long list of previous places she'd been in and already filed her away as an unsalvageable case.

They wouldn't be the first. 

See, now that she was alone, she couldn't stop thinking bad things. 

Lily reached over to the cheap night stand beside the creaking bed on which she lay and grabbed her current book. 

Whilst it was tempting to perhaps use her phone to message a few people, she wanted to escape into fantasy for just a little while, and put aside the concerns and troubles of the day. 

Settled and feeling some mote of stability for the first time in hours, Lily lost herself in another world and time for a little while. One in which she could simply exist without worrying about being moved along to the next thing. 

“Hey, you know that Glint person?” she asked.

“The one who helped us the other day?”

“Yeah...how much do you know about her?”

A shrug was the response to that, one rather noncommittal in nature. 

“Not much, beyond the rumours, to be honest. Seems to keep to herself a lot... really fucking fast as well, I heard she's the fastest cape in the world. Why?”

Why did she want to know, actually?

“I wanted to go and say thanks, you know, for the help.”

It seemed the right thing to do. Wards were expected to cover for one another, but a little gratitude went a long way.

You never knew when you would need to pay back the favour, even if they were all on the same side, in the end. Especially when Glint had probably needed to drop what it was she had been doing at the time to do so. 

Even if you were the fastest thing in the world, what if she had been busy with something important? 

Well, that would be her excuse, because saying 'I'm curious about her' wasn't really enough of a justification, was it? How could she admit that the strange contradiction of the girl was what was occupying her thoughts when she should just be enjoying herself? 

“Yeah, I probably should as well,” Shelter admitted, reaching up to rub at her temples. 

There was a moment's silence, and then Shelter nodded to herself.

“I don't know much, just a few bits and pieces, and some things I can't share...”

“Of course... buuuuut?”

Shelter could access people's files by virtue of being a team Captain; knowing other people's capabilities was an important component of teamwork, so technically most of them could request to know, but it wasn't like being nosy and learning about everyone was the best idea. 

Parahumans could be quite protective about their abilities, knowing was half the battle and all that.

Shelter sighed, evidently recognising that Lily wasn't going to give up on trying to find out more. 

“Her ratings are high. Like, really high in the categories she has... Mover 15, and her Striker rating is high enough that they're worried to test it in case a punch thrown at the speed of light works as the physics say it should. Blaster 6 as well, she's a real Legend package.”

Mover 15? 

That was...

She struggled to think of anybody with that high a rating. Well, she supposed that Eidolon could probably have any rating he wanted in the world, but he was special.

“That's crazy... Well, I can now guess why they didn't want Glint to fire on those two.”

“Yeah. We're lucky she was available to help us the other day. Anyway, look, if you want to say thanks to her then don't mention I told you anything, from what I've heard, she can be a bit prickly with people.”

Lily hummed in thought. 

Well, she might as well say thank you, either way.

“Thanks, Shelter.”

“All good, Lily.”

And from there, that was that. She had to wonder, on her way back to the common room, did people with Glint's degree of power get lonely, up at the top?

Chapter Text

One evening, whilst sat on one of the many plush sofas of the New York PRT's Wards space struggling to make progress reading a book for school, Taylor noticed an oddity.

Somebody was moving towards her.

The average person wouldn't take any great heed of this, but Taylor was by no means normal. Over a year-and-a-half of intensive bullying, you developed a certain hypersensitivity to the positions of others... or was it just good spatial awareness? Paranoia or pattern recognition, it was one and the same when it could make the difference between escaping trouble or having to endure.

More importantly, the person walking towards her it wasn't a member of her team.

They were familiar, in that 'I have seen you about before but have no idea who you are' sort of way.

Taylor's eyes dropped down to the page of her book, a finger moving to keep the page noted down as she did so, perhaps as a way to ignore the way her shoulders were already tensing up.

The stranger was a girl, one in costume but not wearing a mask.

It took her a moment to put her finger on it; one of the two she had helped the other day... Fléchette? Or was this Shelter? No, Shelter was taller. Taylor hadn't really taken the time to get a good look at her the first time, but she did recall that her mask was one of those fancy mirrored ones. 

She looked a little older than Taylor, but not by much.

“You're Glint, right?” the girl asked, unprompted, after a moment's silence between them. “You came and helped me and Shelter yesterday when Cavalcade and those other two were attacking us?”

Taylor hummed back, nodding to the other Wards question.

If she was better with her words, perhaps she would take the opportunity to smile and say that it wasn't a problem, that they would have no doubt done the same for her if their roles were reversed. 

She didn't. 

In truth, she wasn't sure whether she trusted herself to say it. 

Certainly not before she knew what the other girl wanted.

“Well, just wanted to say thanks for the save, we were really in trouble there.” The girl smiled a little. “I'm Lily, um, Fléchette is my cape name.”

Taylor wondered whether she was supposed to extend a hand to shake, but that seemed just a little professional and formal when they both had their masks off. 

If she tried, it would probably be awkward.

She could understand why people liked to start conversations that way though, it was a second to think, to consider the situation currently taking place and think about the next thing to say or do, and right now. 

“I'm Glint, but you already knew that,” she said, feeling rather silly. But she wasn't on a first name basis with anybody yet. 

If the other girl was disappointed in such, then there was no indication of it.

She simply nodded understandingly. 

“Um-hm, had to ask a bit to find out who you are, I'm usually always with the Archers, and you disappeared so fast that I didn't get to say thanks back then.”

Made sense. 

Even if all of New York's five groups of Wards all regularly interacted and trained together, it only made sense that they would spend the majority of their time with their own groups. 

Again, Taylor nodded.

“I'm glad I could help,” she ventured. “Have you met those guys before?”

Being new to the city really had the disadvantage of not really knowing the local scene; something she had been trying to fix by reading through the (sanitised) dossiers the PRT had produced on the local villain scene. It was... quite exhaustive. Brockton Bay's population wasn't even one twenty-fifth of New York, and they managed to have two major gangs and other notable Parahuman groups... New York's Parahuman scene was much, much more complicated. 

“No, well, I know of one of them from past experience,” the girl, Fléchette, glanced away at that, shifting in her posture for the first time to something that looked less comfortable. 

'Bad history?' she wanted to ask, but refrained. 

After all, what if that person was responsible for the other Ward getting powers? That could be a landmine; her uncle had advised her not to touch that topic if she could avoid it. She would not want others to ask her about just how she got powers, so she may as well extend the same courtesy.

“I'm sorry to hear that.”

Silence fell between them.

A long, awkward silence. 

She really didn't know what to say right now. 

For just a moment, Taylor transformed into light. 

Just for a minute of her time, time to consider, to think through what, exactly, this all was. What did Fléchette want, just to say thanks? She'd already done that, perhaps just to make introductions and try and get Taylor on side and friendly in case she and her team needed help in future?

It was perfectly possible that all the girl wanted as to say thanks, and now was doing that awkward 'hang around until she had an excuse to go', of course, or was genuinely interested in getting to know her.

Ah, and now she was caught up in her own head... she could only hide away in this state for so long. 

Even if the human eye was slow to pick up signals, and Taylor could spend minutes made of light in the time it took a fraction of an iota of a second to pass. 

After a few moments more to marshal herself, she returned to normal. 

Other people were looking their way, glancing past Fléchette, Taylor could see them, the glances that people thought were all secretive and covert, but which in truth were not at all. 

And Fléchette---

“What are you reading?” 

She was not expecting the next question to be about her reading material. 

Taylor's fingers tightened on both sides of the book's cover, squeezing the finger that she was using as a marker. Lily probably didn't mean to come off badly, but in Winslow, her love for books, inherited from her mother, had been used against her so many times that it was automatic. 

She really wanted to turn back into light and give herself a few moments again, but she could do this, it was just a perfectly normal conversation.

Clenching her foot so that her hand would not be left white knuckled, she took a breath. 

She wasn't even in the same city or state, she'd gotten away from all of that drama and thrown herself into a different sort, she only went home to spend time with her dad, to eat and to sleep. 

The other girl hadn't even known she existed before a few days ago. 

A treacherous, paranoid part of her mind whispered that it was all a trick, trying to get on her good side. A trick probably set up by the other Wards from before to find out whether she had lied about being Legend's kid. 

“It's Moby Dick,” Taylor said, turning the cover to show the front depicting the eponymous white whale, hideously oversized, bearing down upon a man in a small boat with a harpoon. 

“Huh... We had the option to read that in class, but I went for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest...”

“Good choice,” Taylor said, voice just a little pinched.

And Lily immediately picked up on her tone, leaning forward just a little but still focused on the cover

“You don't like it, then, I guess?” There was some amusement or mirth in her voice at Taylor's reaction. 

She paused for a moment, weighing up how to respond.

... What was the harm in trying to discuss books, books were simple to talk about, without a requirement of deeper thought or insight into what other people thought.

“I swear this book has twice as many pages as it needs, probably more than half,” she said, and then, added; “I came for a story, not a diatribe on the minutiae of whaling techniques.”

And at that, the girl chuckled.

It was a nice sound, the sort of chuckle that came out so quickly it could only have been spontaneous. 

“We've had books like that before, my si—somebody I used to know, once said that Jane Eyre was like trying to eat an entire block of toffee.”

“At least toffee tastes nice...” Taylor muttered before she could stop herself. 

“Dentists already tell me off for my sweet tooth, if reading books added to it, they'd probably have me in every month to check for cavities.”

... What the hell was Taylor doing here?

It was strange to admit that this was probably the longest conversation, or at least, the most earnest conversation that she had enjoyed with somebody her age in a while. The ones with her teammates were a lot more focused on their work, or didn't really go anywhere when it came to more personal stuff. 

It almost felt safer that way, the distinction between the work and personal stuff, on some level, perhaps she'd rather come to see it that way—

“Hey, can I sit with you as you read?” Lily suddenly asked, breaking Taylor from her thoughts as she glanced over her shoulder. “Whenever I try to read by myself, people come over to talk at me.” 

'I want to be alone.'

'There are other sofas.'

'Is this the next part of your plan?'

Taylor stared back for a long moment, various parts of her warring over it. It was just one time; somebody who was sick of being interrupted, somebody who could at least discuss books on some level. 

She didn't need to be so paranoid about everything.

It was sharing a sofa. 

Just that. 

Nothing more. 

“If you want, go ahead,” Taylor said, opening the book again and lowering her eyes to once more return to her reading.

There.

Done.

She'd said it.

Her fate was sealed, and she would have to sit next to somebody.

"Okay, I'll be back in a sec."

Fléchette disappeared, returning a few minutes later and taking a seat at the opposite end of the sofa. So doing, they fell into silence.

Every slight movement from her companion, if such a word could be used, interrupted Taylor's flow for a moment before she could return to reading. At the very least, Fléchette seemingly wasn't the sort of person who kept up a running commentary on her reading material, instead, she appeared, utterly engrossed in it. 

What even was Lily reading?

Glancing from the corner of her eye, she read the cover;

Carmilla.

Ah, the vampire story?

Well, fair enough.

Thinking about it, Taylor used to sit next to her mother and read like this on rainy days. Especially on those lazy Sundays when it was storming outside. 

Her mother would wrap up in a big blanket together, and they would spend a few hours reading and getting her father to bring them hot chocolate. He would never complain about being relegated to the cocoa butler, even if occasionally he would be a bit theatrical about it, returning with the drinks and offering them to 'the princesses in the blankets.'

And she would stick her tongue out, her mother would turn up her nose at his comments... and then they would all laugh.

Taylor snapped out of her thoughts when somebody nearby broke into loud, boisterous laughter. After a moment to make sure that it wasn't anything that would trouble her, she returned to reading. 

... She suddenly felt cold, thinking of that old warmth yet surrounded by the sterile surroundings of the Wards common space. 

This situation of sitting on opposite sides of a sofa wasn't the same as those old times either, of course. But how long had it really been since she last just... existed in somebody else's presence? 

Sitting with her father for dinner had been stilted ever since her mother died, even if recently he had been making more of an effort to try and bridge the gap. And it wasn't like she could achieve this with any friends. 

Because what friends, right?

There were no problems that night workwise; no sudden robberies or call-outs whatsoever. It seemed to her that much of her time here was rather peaceful. 

It wasn't as if she had expected to get into Cape fights all the time, but still. 

The only oddity to occur was when it was time for her to go home.

“Hey, do you want to do this again?” Fléchette asked as Taylor got up from the sofa. 

“Huh?”

“You know, sit and stuff? My team gets rowdy sometimes, it would be nice to have an excuse to just sit and read in the quiet, you know?”

Oh, was all this just an excuse to get away from loud people?

Well, Taylor could understand that, on some level. Sometimes when she did not want to be around others or found herself second guessing things, she would find a quiet spot for herself and just... decompress. But she had all the time in the world to do so.

So, being able to provide that opportunity for others would be kind... unless she was misreading this situation, of course.

“Oh, sure. If you want, I guess I wouldn't mind,” she said, perhaps a little non-committal in nature, but still, she tried. 

"Thanks, I'll look forward to it."

Taylor turned and walked away before she could spend too long dwelling on it, retreating away from the conversation that had just occurred, and the tacit promise that there might be something like that again. 

Chapter Text

In the last few weeks, a new tradition had wormed its way into Taylor Hebert's life. 

Well, two traditions, but the pertinent one right now was that every Friday night, after school, Taylor would stop by her uncle's Manhattan apartment. 

There, Taylor would play with her adopted cousin, sometimes help Arthur cook dinner, and then they would all sit down and talk and just exist together, as niece, uncle and family. When you could get from school or Brockton Bay in less than the time it took a person to blink, you didn't really have an excuse not to spend time with the folks, right?

She always felt a little guilty to be eating all their food... but then again, what even was Legend's salary?

Probably more than enough to feed a weedy teenager like her. 

Currently, she was sat on the penthouse apartment's sofa, watching the sun set over the city through the preposterously large window that faced the west. 

It was pretty. 

One dreaded to imagine what the rent on this place must be.

Lost in thought, Taylor didn't look up until Arthur stepped in, holding a squirming, petulant three-year-old under his arms like a naughty kitten. A kitten currently making every effort not to be held, small hands flailing and batting anything within reach. 

“Can you play with Keith for a moment, Taylor?” Arthur asked. 

The man looked tired, between himself and her uncle they were working hard to make food for them all, but junior was a master of getting under people's feet. 

Taylor had never really been one for children.

This wasn't to imply that she disliked them, by any means, but she just did not have a lot of experience with them. She was an only child in a small nuclear family without many connections, her grandparents on her father's side dead, and those on her mother's side only interested in Annette, not so much in Taylor. 

But Arthur and Keith Jr. were family. 

“Sure.”

Taylor extended her hands, and the little boy was hoisted into her lap. Automatically, she put an arm on the little boy's stomach to hold him in place.  

She still remembered the day they got the news that her uncle and Arthur adopted the little boy, barely older than sixteen months at the time. It had been a rare moment in which Taylor and her father celebrated, buying a little cake to share between them to celebrate and spending ages on the phone congratulating them both.

In her lap, junior turned in place to look up at her with big brown eyes.

“I wanna play!”

“It's going to be dinner soon, don't you want to wait for that?” she asked, lifting her heels off the carpeted floor to bounce him on her knee.

“No! I wanna play until dinner!” 

Well, the child had already worked out how to optimise his spare-time-to-play ratio; it was a shame that her dad couldn't find a similar work-life balance. After a moment to consider, Taylor shrugged and got up, putting Keith junior on the floor. 

He looked up at her for a moment, as if wondering whether this was a test, and then his face broke into a smile. He darted off at what, to him, was probably a great speed... although of course, the concept of speed was laughable to Taylor. 

The boy was heading for the toy construction kit that had been left all about the floor, small diggers and trucks scattered over a broad area.

Taylor wondered, idly, how many times her uncle or his husband had accidentally stepped on one of them.

She moved ahead, picking up a bright yellow toy truck from the ground. 

“That's my truck!”

“You don't want to share it with me?”

“No!” and now the child was stomping over even more quickly, glowering with what was no doubt intended to be fearsome disapproval, but which made his cheeks puff up and look eminently squishable.

“Okay,” she shrugged, putting it down.

A moment later, the truck was grabbed by junior.

“I'll be the concrete mixer. We can build a house out of blocks by digging up the carpet,” Taylor suggested, grabbing a bunch of toy blocks and putting one of them in the back of the truck Keith Jr was pushing along the ground. 

Fifteen minutes of pretend-excavating the expensive plush carpet and building a precarious tower of wooden blocks later, dinner was ready. The toy vehicles were abandoned, the construction project forgotten halfway through by the lead architect in favour of running on short toddler feet to the kitchen, with Taylor slowly bringing up the rear.

Arthur, a great cook, had the homemade macaroni cheese ready and was preparing to serve it up onto plates with a large, slatted spoon.

Steam rose in long, curling trails from the meal, percolating upwards.

“How's my little man doing, then!? Did you and Taylor have fun?” Keith Sr. asked as they entered, stepping over to pick up his son. With a giggle filling the air, the elder hoisted the junior up into the air, arms extending as if trying to lift him all the way to the ceiling. And then, suddenly, he pulled his son closer until their noses brushed for a moment. 

“Yeah! We built a hospital!”

Taylor would describe it as being much closer to the Tower of Babel rather than a hospital, but who was she to go against the words of the chief architect?

Legend grinned at her over the squealing toddler, who was currently bicycling his legs in midair.

It felt odd to be in a real family home again. 

Chapter Text

Taylor walked with her book to the sofa at the far end of the Wards common space. Set in a recess in the wall, it was flanked either side by a pair of bookshelves that closed it in and made it feel safe. There was a small table in front of it, on which a set of stained coasters emblazoned with the New York PRT logo sat. 

The bookshelves were laden with a wide variety of reading material, ranging from old books that had either been left there by previous Wards, or placed there by their superiors. She rather suspected a heavy hand when it came to the latter; there weren't any memoirs of retired villains, but plenty of biographies about notable heroic Parahumans in there. 

Well, cater to your audience and all that. 

As Taylor considered the selection, a nearby movement caught her attention. 

It was Lily, standing to the side with her own book. 

The other girl smiled as she gave a faint nod. 

The two of them often read together now. There had been no discussion of such, no involved conversations scheming to organise and coordinate, it just happened that they had fallen into the same pattern, and for the moment, neither of them was trying to break it. 

When they weren't busy with team training activities or on patrol, Taylor would find her spot here, and if the same was true for Lily and she wasn't hanging out with her team, she would do the same. 

Silently, Lily took a seat on the left side in her normal spot, pulling her legs up and under her so that they pointed inwards. 

After a moment of further consideration of the selection, Taylor did the same, mirroring the pose. 

Taylor rather wondered whether Lily had the same logic for sitting in such a position as she did; with both their legs facing inwards, there was no space for somebody else to try and squeeze into the middle between them. 

Resting her elbow on the armrest, Taylor leaned into the somewhat old and squishy cushion, resting her weight on it. With how the sofa was placed, one could see the entire common space, and more importantly, could know when somebody else was approaching. 

So doing, their latest reading session began. 

In their small, secluded corner of the world away from the chaos beyond, they could just exist. From time to time, Taylor glanced up, not raising her head but scanning the room. 

Off-Kilter was talking with a boy that Taylor rather suspected was her boyfriend. Joust was engaging in some variant of speed chess that involved a lot of swearing as his opponent swept him, and Stallion was glancing over the room from time to time. 

Their eyes met for a moment, he nodded her way with a faint smile, and then he went on with his day. 

She turned back to her book. 

For a good quarter of an hour, she was able to enjoy this peaceful state before they were interrupted by somebody approaching. 

“Hey Flech!”

Taylor breathed a sigh through her nose, but didn't stop reading. 

Lily was a popular young lady, or that was to say, she had plenty of friends in the Wards. Not just in one team, but across several, there was always somebody willing and happy to spend time with her. 

Must be nice. 

It rather made her envious. 

Imagine if she could find it that easy to talk to people, everything would be so much simpler. If she was just the sort of person who didn't spend every moment second guessing every thought automatically, it was pathetic, really.  Did other people get lost in their thoughts, analysing every little social interaction as well, or was that just her?

Did they all assume the worst with every conversation like her? Or did they do quite the opposite? When she was young, she always used to assume the best, or try to at least.

She missed those days. 

“I'm good, Jason,” Lily said, barely looking up from her book. 

There was a moment in which the other Ward hung around, standing there as if expecting something more to be said. 

“What are you doing?” he asked, again, in that ever so stilted manner. 

“Trying to read.”

The young man was either as dense as depleted uranium or unwilling to take the hint. 

“C'mon, you haven't joined in with anything since yesterday---”

Taylor raised her eyes from her book, irritated at the interruption, and looked over the cause of all the noise. 

He was conventionally attractive enough, she supposed. But he definitely looked like the sort of person who, were it not for the fact he had a power, would find a career breaking rocks into smaller rocks later in life. 

Her eyes moved to the top of his left arm, on which was the symbol of the team he was part of. She had expected a Hammer, but instead there was a bow and arrow emblazoned there. A part of Lily's team, then, so probably a Blaster of some degree, right?

Honestly, he rather reminded her of the various boys that the trio would occasionally rope into their little pranks just for the smallest mote of attention from a pretty girl. 

Oh, was that what was going on here? 

Trying to hit on somebody at work? That was rather poor form, then again... a lot of the Wards probably only knew one another through work, right?

If you put a load of teenagers in spandex or form fitting clothing and then had them all hang around one another for long enough then it was inevitable that those stupid, hormonal thoughts would appear. Well, let them do so; it wasn't any of her concern what people thought of one another. 

And yet...

Lily could do better.  

She was too pretty to be with somebody who was so generically attractive in such a passé way.

Not that she would voice such aloud. 

The other Ward glanced from Lily to Taylor and paused. 

Taylor stared back. 

What, was he going to make a pass at her as well, perhaps try and use her to drag Lily into joining in with whatever activity was going on? The old 'hey, Glint wants to do it as well, you should join us' or something like that?

Just the idea made her glower. 

The young man took a step back, hands raising. 

“Ah, alright then, I'll just... leave you guys to read,” he said, voice dropping a little. 

... Wait, did she just scare him off?

Taylor blinked as the member of Lily's team turned and began walking away, for all his dogged efforts to continue the conversation, suddenly he was just leaving, like that? What sort of expression had she been wearing just now that would do that!? 

“... Thanks.”

The word was soft from Lily's lips as the other Ward returned to the group at the end of the room. 

A few of them glanced in their direction. 

Were they discussing her? Was she going to get a reputation as somebody unapproachable? Well, more unapproachable than she already was, would she now get nicknames based around being a frowny bitch who glared at people just for talking vaguely in her vicinity---

“I didn't do anything,” she replied, trying to keep her voice level. 

“You got him to go away... normally I wouldn't mind but...” she paused, then pulled her legs in a little more. “I'm not in the mood to deal with people today.”

“Sorry.”

She uttered it automatically. 

“Heh...” it was a little chuckle, more of an amused exhalation than anything else. “You're okay, I've just been surrounded by a lot of really loud people and chaos recently, haven't been able to sleep back home because of it, you know? Just need a little peace.”

The way she said the word home was odd, there was a half second pause as if deciding whether it was the correct term to use.

Taylor hummed. 

She wasn't sure what to say to that. 

“Any time.”

That felt like the right thing to say in this situation.

From the corner of her eye, she noted the way Lily's grip on her book relaxed just a little at that, the subtle way her shoulders drooped just a fraction, as if some residual tension had been released. 

For another half an hour or so after the altercation with her teammate, the two of them sat in utter silence, in their own little world. Around them, the conversations and activities of their fellow Wards fell by the wayside, and Taylor managed to finish another chapter of this damnable book. 

If she ever saw a harpoon in real life, she would curse it there and then. 

However, her loathing for the book was interrupted quite abruptly. 

“... You ever find a quote in a book that you feel bad about liking?” Lily suddenly asked.

Taylor looked up and at her. 

The other girl was chewing on her lip as she stared at the page before her. 

“I guess?” she shrugged. “There's been a few times where a villain's said something, I guess, and I've thought that they have a point.”

The other girl gave a sort of shy nod. 

“I kind of hope the main character and the vampire character get together by the end, to be honest...” for the way Lily said it, it was as if she was embarrassed to admit it. Well, it wasn't like Taylor hadn't secretly hoped for something similar in various books in the past, finding the purported love interest to be a bland piece of wood and the stories' antagonists to be far more compelling. 

It had been a while since she had last read a romance, admittedly. 

Lily turned in her seat, moving her legs from underneath herself to instead sit cross-legged, facing Taylor, and held up her copy of Carmilla so that it was open to a page. A finger was held at the start of a line.

“Like, look at some of these lines, Glint!”

Dutifully, Taylor read;

“You were quite right to ask me that, or anything. You do not know how dear you are to me, or you could not think any confidence too great to look for.

But I am under vows, no nun half so awfully, and I dare not tell my story yet, even to you. The time is very near when you shall know everything. You will think me cruel, very selfish, but love is always selfish; the more ardent the more selfish. How jealous I am you cannot know. You must come with me, loving me, to death; or else hate me and still come with me. And hating me through death and after. There is no such word as indifference in my apathetic nature.”

“How can I not read into this and want to pair them together!?”

Well, Taylor had heard a few vague things about Carmilla, but she didn't realise it was quite that blatant. When did that book come out? Wasn't it early nineteen-hundreds? Taylor was rather surprised that it had managed to get past the stuffy old-world sorts who couldn't stand so much as a hint of impropriety...

She took a moment to consider, and replied; 

“Yeah, I can see it,” she said, simply. “I imagine it would be very passionate and maybe a little imbalanced, but I could see a way it would be romantic and sweet.”

“Some people would think it's weird, you know, two girls together...”

Over the top of the book, the upper half of Lily's face was visible. The other girl was watching her with such an intense look, with a sort of... was that trepidation? 

Was she worried that Taylor would not see what she saw in the pairing, or perhaps, that she would judge Lily on her choice of reading material? 

Taylor shrugged.

“I've got a gay family member, one of the nicest guys I know, adopted my cousin a while ago. No reason why two girls can't be together as well.”

Taylor had wondered before when it came to that stuff in her own life, if only for a very brief while. But it wasn't like those inquiries into her own sexuality had been able to go especially far, when their source decided to completely upend what they had. 

Maybe Emma had guessed about the thoughts that Taylor was experiencing and been disgusted by her? 

Probably not, thinking about it.

If she had, then she would have inevitably used it against her.

Back in the real world beyond her thoughts, Lily blinked, and then she lowered the book to reveal that she was smiling, that faintly giddy expression you couldn't help on some level. 

“That's neat! I... find reading about those sorts of relationships more... genuine? I don't know how to put it...” Lily looked away for a moment, looking faintly embarrassed. 

“I get that. I found reading romances boring when I started seeing all the same sorts of things between men and women, it got formulaic.”

“Yeah!” Lily was quick to respond there, evidently relieved by Taylor's response.

“Although I think in older books like that, the good guys always have to win, so I wouldn't get your hopes up. I kinda wished Dracula had won when I read that.”

“I swear to god if that's what happens, I'll be livid,” Lily declared. 

But she kept up her quizzical look, as if searching for something in Taylor's expression for a few moments. 

Taylor wasn't quite sure what the other girl was looking for, but before she had time to really analyse it, the other girl asked;

“I've been thinking about reading Dracula... Did you like it?”

“Yeah. I really like it, even if sometimes Van Helsing's several page long spiels irritate me, or all of the stuff about Mina having a 'man's brain' when she's the one basically doing all the real work between them. Like, the entire plot is solved because of her, but then the various men will say that her 'woman's heart' is too fragile to know anything that is going on! It's ridiculous.”

Once, she had that conversation with her mother on the topic; it had lasted a good hour or two, because when you engage an English professor on the topic of literary criticism, you better buckle up for a wild ride.

And her mother may have pointed out a few things Taylor had missed at the time that had only made her more and more irritable about how they treated Mina Harker as a result. 

“... Would you recommend it, though?” Lily pressed, leaning forward a little. 

“Yeah... it's very unique, I like how it's all put together, just the writing really reflects the time it was written.”

A nod and a smile, Lily leaned back again so that she was resting against the armrest of the sofa again. 

“I'll add it to my list...”

As simple as that, did the other girl really respect her opinion that much? It left Taylor rather flummoxed for a moment, as did another realisation; she'd been drawn into a proper conversation with somebody her age there, hadn't she? 

“If you want... you can borrow this, like, once I'm done with it?” Lily offered, lifting her copy of Carmilla. 

Well, it would be nice, it had been on her list for a while.

“... Sure, and I have a copy of Dracula back home, if you want?”

“That'd be really nice.”

With a smile, Lily returned to reading, still sat facing Taylor. 

For her part, Taylor lowered her eyes back to her book, but her mind raced, playing back the conversation that had just occurred.

It had felt so natural, it was nice to get lost in just talking to somebody like that.

Chapter Text

A picture in motion through eternity.

Chapter Text

It was raining outside.

Those dark, heavy-looking clouds that had been there when she left for, and returned from, the Louvre had unleashed their deluge upon New York City.

It was the sort of rain where big, fat splotches of water would splat heavily against the glass, creating an ever-changing patchwork of large dots sliding and decaying downwards towards the windowsill. As they grew in size, their speed did the same, escalating and falling faster and faster until they reached the bottom, and then they were just... gone.

Taylor liked the sound of the rain. 

Compared to the utter silence of the Louvre earlier in the day, with its halls full of people and not a sound to be heard, the rain had an almost meditative quality. 

It was a constant pitter-pat of chaos that was somehow soothing rather than distracting, worlds apart from the utter serene sterility of her Breaker form. 

Sat on a comfortable sofa beside a low windowsill, Taylor had angled her body so that she could look out over the street from the third-story window. She watched as cars made their way sluggishly down the street, their lights bright in the darkness.

Her shift for the night would end in an hour's time, and there had been no trouble tonight.

Well, nothing that required a Blaster of her calibre to respond to, certainly. 

Thinking about it that way was rather arrogant, wasn't it? She hadn't even achieved anything in her career as a Parahuman thus far, beyond appearing above a museum during a robbery and flash-banging somebody...

The sound of soft footsteps reached her ears.

Taylor glanced sharply to the side, the hairs on the back of her neck rising.

It was Lily. 

Against all odds, the sight of the girl made something in her jolt. She hadn't thought the girl was in tonight, but here she was, in the flesh, walking towards her with that normal soft, easy smile. 

But... why was she here? 

Had they called her in for an emergency shift? Taylor hadn't been in the Wards common space for the last hour or so, the sterile room had been too much like her experiences earlier in the day, and she had been keen to avoid that. 

And if Lily was in today, why hadn't she come with a book so that they could sit together like normal?

It was a silly thought. 

A selfish one. 

One that reflected a strange disappointment that curled in her gut. 

Normally, they would just sit in companionable silence, with only the occasional comment or discussion of some amusing line they had found. 

But Taylor had grown to enjoy the other girl's enjoyment of their time together.

As Lily approached the end of Carmilla, the other girl was wavering between anger at how things were going and hoping desperately that the 'pairing' of the two characters in the story would come to pass as she had hoped. She would read with such an intensity one moment, only to then dramatically close the book and sulk, proclaiming that she could not bear to read so much as a single word more. 

But, inevitably, Lily would sheepishly pick it back up and continue a moment later. So engaged and deep in the story, in her hopes for romance, it was perhaps a little silly... but endearing in its honesty.

So... why was Lily in now? 

Back in the world beyond her thoughts, Lily flashed her a smile.

“They like to keep you in late I see, Glint?” she asked, by way of greeting.

The girl was in that form-fitting sort of clothing that was normally worn by people whilst exercising. Was this her casual wear? 

Taylor took in the way the fluorescent light caught the curve of Lily's shoulders and waist. She had that same elegance, the same, smooth and gentle consistency of form, but she didn't look cold like the marble did. 

The comparison sent a sharp, unexpected jolt through her chest. 

She felt such a sudden, strange urge to reach out and see if Lily's skin felt as soft as the stone had looked, that she was left blinking and confused. 

What a strange, stupid notion.

Perhaps spending so long in her Breaker form had done something to her mind, or all those strange questions that had been prompted by her time out earlier were getting to her. 

A faint flush rose up her neck, and she looked back at the rain for a moment to marshal herself. 

“I stay up until the end of my time; it takes me less than a second to get home so it's not like I have far to go,” she said, deciding to humour the comment. “... What about you? You're not in your outfit, they giving you a super late night?”

“I live here.”

Live here? 

At headquarters?

That didn't seem right. Taylor frowned a little as she turned on the sofa to face the other girl just a little more fully. 

“... Really?”

To that, a shrug.

“Might as well. I use my room here more than anywhere else.” Lily paused for a moment, and then elaborated. “It's more consistent than foster homes. The latest one is already pretty full and here I can actually decorate it without worrying about something being stolen, there's always people around I can kind of rely on... y'know? It's not home, but it's somewhere.”

There was a strange emphasis on that last word, as if it had a connotation that Taylor couldn't really understand, or perhaps, didn't have the right selection of life experiences to do so. Like a paradoxical longing for some imagined thing. 

Or, perhaps, something that had never existed in the first place. 

“Oh.”

She wasn't sure what to say to that, to be honest. The slipping in of information about a foster home was obvious enough, but now her mind raced. What would be tactful and polite to say, but would also convey some depth of emotion? 

A dozen ideas came to mind;

“I'm sorry to hear that.”

“That sucks.”

“I'm glad you're happier here.”

None of them really suited, though. Considering the way Lily spoke about the matter, it was difficult to imagine that she was happy about it either, to be honest. 

Should she transform and give it a few solid minutes of consideration and engineer the absolute perfect response?

No... even with all the time in the world, she would struggle to find the right words right now. 

That, and Taylor would rather not deprive herself of so many senses right now, she wanted to hear the sounds of the rain and Lily beside her, and feel the cool air around them.

Lily's head turned, and she stared through the window, just as Taylor had been minutes ago, at some distant point an object of hypnotic fascination. 

But after a moment filled with painful awkwardness, the other girl's lips quirked up, just a little, as if she already knew the various lines going through Taylor's head.

Or had heard them all before, perhaps.

In a second, Lily went from deep in thought to looking as though she were searching for something beyond the window.

And then, Lily released a deep breath. 

Rather than waiting for Taylor to stumble out some manner of response, the black-haired girl lowered herself to sit on the other end of the sofa. Just like when they sat to read, she didn't try to sit close, keeping a respectful distance between them. 

Lily's elbow found the windowsill, her posture a mirror of Taylor's, and then asked.

“What are you doing, then, Glint?”

Taylor was, frankly, thankful that the topic had been changed, as Taylor really could not think of the response she wanted to give. 

“Just watching the rain.”

“They won't like you not being in the common room,” Lily murmured back.

“I can be there any time, if they call me back I'll be in there before they finish the request,” she said. “Especially now, I thought you weren't in, so I came here, we could've read together...”

 Lily blinked, and then asked.

“I'm the only reason you come to the common room, to read?”

“... I mean, one of them.”

God, what a stupid response. She should have denied the notion, now Lily would just consider her to be an introverted weirdo, a freak who had to be dragged into social interaction like a prickly, flighty hedgehog!

A hum was the response to that, and for a few moments they sat watching the rain, and internally Taylor screamed at how bad her response had been. 

“Not fond of being around people, Glint?”

It was a question that struck right to the core, and for a moment Taylor wondered what to say, or indeed, whether she even should say something at all. Not replying would just be a confirmation in a way, but it would also let her keep just a little bit of her pride, or stop other people from finding out if Lily were to mention it to others. 

Taylor looked away for a long moment, and then, before she could let her nerves get the better of her, she spoke.

“I'm more used to being alone.”

There. 

Not giving anything away, little more than an errant observation, really. 

Even that had been a rather stupid thing to admit; humans were built to be around other people, they were supposed to be gregarious. Even introverts had friends. 

“Um-hm... I've always hated being alone...” Lily said, paused, and then said, in a hurried way; “am I troubling you now? Like, I'm not making you feel uncomfortable, right?”

The addition was so natural and quick that a part of Taylor wasn't sure what to do with it. There was no calculated moment or pause for thought on Lily's part, so it almost felt a little alien or wrong. No, wait, not quite wrong, it was caring about how Taylor felt, and somehow that felt far more dangerous.

“No, not really, it's okay... I'm just tired, not been able to sleep recently.” 

A soft hum.

“You know why? Got any tests coming up?”

Three, but that wasn't important. 

“Just... all restless, not able to settle my mind and stuff,” she said. 

That had been part of why she'd gone to the Louvre, after all. To distract herself from others, to have a little time to herself and mentally wear herself out. 

Lily's face turned in the palm of her hand, which had been supporting it until now, to send her a long look with those big dark eyes that Taylor thought were rather pretty indeed. 

They made her think of a gemstone, not in that 'they glitter like a well-cut diamond' way or something like that, no, instead they were more like Smoky Quartz or a similar gem. Incredibly dark on the inside, but the closer you got to the edge of the iris away from the pupil, the lighter the darkness became, containing countless other, more subtle shades.

“... When's the last time you exercised?”

The question quite shook Taylor out of her reflections on the other girl's lovely eyes.

“Huh?” 

Was... was she supposed to be insulted by that question? 

Like, she wasn't athletic or fit or anything, sure, but wasn't pudgy... was she?

“Well, half the time you just appear out of nowhere, you know, that speed of light thing? But how often do you actually walk places?” Lily pressed, oblivious to Taylor's thoughts.

The fact Taylor had to consider for a moment probably said a lot, and it encouraged Lily to press on;

“I bet you're restless because you're not getting the exercise your body needs, Glint.”

“I doubt it, I've never really been one for sports,” she dodged, wondering just how she had gotten into this conversation. “It's probably just anxiety or something.”

Lily leaned closer.

“Wanna put it to the test? I was just going to go to the gym, we can see how much better you sleep tonight after you've tired yourself out?”

Taylor's immediate instinct was to say no, to say that it was no big deal because frankly, she didn't want the other Ward to see just how out of shape she probably was. 

And in a gym where other people could see and judge her? 

Hell no!

And Lily looked so... trim, that she would most likely just think of Taylor as a gawky freak. 

That was what Emma always used to say, at the least, and she was probably right, even if she had been such a bitch. The thought made anger surge through her, one she couldn't help. 

And with it, her body flashed bright.

Lily winced, and Taylor hurriedly tried to calm it. 

Breathe deep, calm... calm...

“Sorry,” Taylor mumbled, looking away. Just a moment without any control, and she'd made Lily uncomfortable. “Just got caught up thinking about stuff... sure... we'll give it a go, but you'll need to show me how things work!”

She said it in a rush, before she'd had time to think about it... and wasn't that a superb irony?

Didn't change the fact that this was a bad idea. 

A terrible idea.

Probably one of the worst she'd had in ages, or at least since the one of 'I need to get out of here, I need to get away' that had led to her blasting through the Winslow school roof after her Trigger Event.

Lily stood, and Taylor did the same, gripping her other arm with a hand and rubbing it awkwardly. 

“C'mon, I'll show you the ropes,” Lily said, evidently recognising her unease.

And then, Lily reaching out to take Taylor's hand. 

Lily wasn't cold and hard like marble, as she had mused on earlier. Instead, Lily's hand was small, warm, and soft, with slender fingers that wrapped around her hand with a gentle yet firm grip. 

Taylor didn't have time to pull away before the shorter girl began walking, pulling Taylor behind her down the hallway. Evidently, now that Taylor had agreed to give it a go, Lily was not going to allow her to escape so easily.

“You don't need to pull me,” she mumbled halfheartedly. 

Either Lily ignored her or didn't hear her quiet complaint, instead continuing to coax her to the dreaded gymnasium.

As her heart beat powerfully in her chest with nerves, a strange and errant thought came to Taylor. 

'This is the first time I've touched somebody who isn't family in months.'

It was strange, because despite everything that had happened to her, she didn't want to pull her hand free from that grip. 

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Being in charge of Parahumans wasn't easy. 

It was something that Andrew, aka Jouster, had gotten used to with time. 

As the captain of the New York Wards Lancer team, there was a lot of weight on his shoulders, both to be responsible for his teammates' performance and their wellbeing. 

He'd only been in the post for a few months, three to be exact, although he had been on the team for much longer than that. 

His teammates all knew him, and they'd had one another's backs for years in some cases, through thick and thin. When Off-Kilter's previous boyfriend cheated on her, Andrew had been there with some popcorn and a copy of her favourite film, the Princess Diaries, to distract her. When Sublimate first joined as a sickly pre-teen in need of surgery, he'd organised cards and visits to keep the worried youth entertained in the recovery period.

Leading them wasn't too hard, either, because they each had a different niche.

In recent days, however, something of a spanner had been thrown into the works of the team's smooth operations, in the form of their newest member, Glint. 

The new girl undeniably came with a shitload of benefits for the team, that much could not be denied. She was punctual and consistent, wasn't volatile or confrontational, she didn't interrupt him or put others down in some misguided attempt to establish herself in charge.

Glint was, in many ways, a very pleasant person to be around, but she so utter eclipsed the abilities that he was used to working with that it made it next to impossible to really plan around her.

As a city, New York benefitted in that it had multiple teams of Wards for different purposes. Unlike most PRT departments in which Capes with different specialities had to mix and adapt to one another, New York had the luxury of tailoring groups for specific purposes.

The Hammer team were the hard hitters, the ones who could go toe to toe with Brutes or more dangerous threats and (mostly) shrug off what the opposition had to offer. The Archers worked at maximum range, able to cover vast areas or provide fire support whilst other teams moved into position. The Shields protected the others with force fields and Shaker effects, the essential backup and support. The Daggers rarely deployed in the field, being mostly Thinkers and Tinkers who could support the others with vital resources, information and logistics, and that was before one included the actual main Protectorate team. 

In this system, the Lancer team was designed for quick responses.  

They got there first, gathered information and covered avenues of escape, both for heroes and villains. 

So what the hell did you do with somebody who was less 'fast response' than 'immediate response'? Somebody who could get into any position immediately and then deploy levels of firepower capable of bringing down a building with time?

Glint was, as a result, a problem.

Nominally, he was in charge of her, but her abilities made her difficult to factor into a team, and her personality made her an island even as they tried to get her to integrate.

She was too fast. Too strong. Too versatile. 

It sounded great, to have a potential major hero in the making under your command, and no doubt it would be great for his professional career. But it was quite another when said hero was thoroughly uncommunicative yet strong that she created complications merely by existing. 

“It's like she thinks she's better than us,” was the assessment of Off-Kilter, as she watched Glint take part in an exercise. 

The team's only other girl was stood with arms crossed over her chest as she watched Glint completely invalidate the current training exercise; dodging the soft-tennis balls being fired at her in random intervals and angles. 

For most, it was a fun exercise. You ducked and bobbed and weaved to not be hit by the harmless spheres, and saw how long you could go without being hit. The machines even had different settings, like firing speed, power, and tactics. They didn't hurt when they hit, but they did leave a glowing indicator for a minute to note down where you were hit. 

But Glint moved so quickly that she just flickered out of the way of the tennis balls fired her way, never even trying to shield herself or leaping to the side. 

Glint was... she was not a bad person by any means, she just didn't talk much and had seemingly had no interest in getting to know them. She would stand to the side, watching them relax or in her own corner with a sort of invisible wall between herself and everyone else. Crossing the No Man's land between the trenches of a first world war battlefield seemed easier than getting Glint to partake in an earnest conversation.

“... I don't think so,” was the blunt statement by his second in command. 

Stallion also had his arms over his chest as he watched Glint disappear and reappear in different spots, but unlike Off-Kilter, it was with more of an expression of consideration. 

“Well then, Mr. social savant, what do you think then?”

To that, a pause, and then a shrug.

“I reckon she's just awkward, or there's something else going on. You noticed she never really talks about her personal life? She commutes in from up north but stays all shift, like, never tries to get home early...”

It was, indeed, something Andrew had noticed before. 

Clocking off a few minutes early was almost standard, a luxury and small wink-wink concession... but Glint always seemed happy to remain until the last second. 

Then again, she didn't have traffic to deal with.

“Trouble at home?” Andrew suggested. 

Stallion shrugged.

Off-Kilter looked decidedly uncomfortable at the suggestion, given her own history. With a huff, she began putting her hair up into a ponytail, something she always did whenever she was feeling awkward. She used to bite her hair, but as a team they'd managed to stop that bad habit, now she would just fuss with it. 

“She does go back, so it can't be too bad... then again, she is basically leaving her own state to come here rather than staying wherever she comes from,” Stallion mused, reaching up to rub at his chin. “Not like I want to ask and intrude...”

“It's been, like, almost two months now, and she's still barely said anything to most of us,” Off-Kilter sulked.

She'd been so excited to hear that they had another girl joining them, the Lancer team being such a 'sausage fest' in her own words. 

“I rather remember how shy you were when you first joined...” Andrew said, dragging out the word shy with a grin.

He promptly got a punch in the arm for his comment. 

Such disrespect for her senior!

Across the room, the exercise came to an end. The machines stopped their shooting and lowered to indicate such, leaving Glint standing there, utterly unmarked. Her power just invalidated this entire exercise, didn't it? 

Well, c'est la vie. 

Andrew stepped forward, putting on a smile and encouraging tone. 

“Well done, I don't think you even got hit once, Glint!”

Glint paused for a moment, as she so often did whenever he or other people addressed her. 

The girl's mask covered her upper face, but he could sense her eyes trailing over them as if looking for something. Quite what that thing was, he had no idea, he never did, but after a second she gave a nod. 

“Yeah... it was kind of fun.”

Kind of fun. Not stressful or unnerving, good practice or exciting. 

Just kind of fun, like describing an idle game of table tennis played when you weren't really in the mood.

“Next time, though, we'll have you do it without your power.”

He braced himself for the inevitable reply, one that he himself had used in the past when faced with this suggestion.

'Why would I not use my power? I'm never not going to be using my power to avoid things being shot at me!'

Glint nodded after a moment, not arguing with the suggestion.

No argument with the notion. 

“Are you okay, Glint?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah. What you said just made me think of something the other day. Somebody told me to do more stuff without my power.”

Interesting enough, as was the fact that Glint had just admitted the sort of thing she would normally keep to herself.

He would take it as a small victory. 

“Well, that's good. I remember having to try to learn to not rely on my power all the time, I once accidentally ran through a wall in the house and almost brought it down,” he admitted with a chuckle. 

To that, Glint didn't move or react much, pausing for a moment as if to consider the idea. 

And then she just nodded. 

Welp, the attempt at humour was a swing and a miss. 

“C'mon, let's get food,” he suggested, rather than try to push or hone in on the point. 

As a team, they moved towards the cafeteria to grab lunch, finding a few other folk eating as well. Being such a large Department, the New York PRT building was always busy with somebody doing something, and at this time in the morning, the lunch rush was just beginning.

Off-Kilter split off to go and join her boyfriend from the Hammer Team, and Sublimate had set meal times for his medication so had departed beforehand. 

And then---

“Glint, they have the special meatballs today!”

Fléchette from the Archer team had walked up and was excitably pointing towards the cafeterias serving station, a big smile on her lips.  

And did Andrew's eyes deceived him, or was Glint almost looking excited by the notion? Despite her normal attitude and the walls she threw up whenever somebody tried to talk to her... 

His newest teammate stepped away with Fléchette, not even pausing in her step before moving off to the side at the Archer's insistence. 

She glanced back just briefly to offer a quick apology and promise to rejoin the team later, and then she was gone, being frogmarched over to grab a plate of food by her companion. Fléchette was talking quite a bit as well, and even if Glint seemed to mostly be nodding in response, there was an openness there that he had yet to see his teammate achieve with anybody else.

It all posed a rather interesting question...

“... When'd they start getting friendly?” he asked aloud, looking towards Stallion. 

Had his second in command noticed Glint getting close to the Archer team? 

It was hardly as if Andrew could be everywhere at once; as the team captain he had paperwork that left him too busy to monitor everyone's interactions (not that doing so was his business, of course). 

“Thinking about it, I've seen them sitting reading together a few times, just on the sofas in the common room or other parts of the building,” Stallion commented. “I think I once saw them leaving the gym as well? Maybe they just hit it off, or they knew each other beforehand?”

Stallion was thoughtful for a second, before he grinned. 

“Got an idea?” Andrew prompted, recognising that expression. 

When Radial first joined and proved rather difficult to break out of his shell, it had been Stallion who had managed to do so, and in a rather... unorthodox way. Housekeeping was still trying to remove the citrus smell from the men's bathroom on the second floor, but if nothing else, Radial's love for silly pranks had rather forced him to open up to them after that day.

“Something's come to mind, yeah.”

“... Dare I ask?” he pressed. "It better not be a prank, I doubt she'd take it well."

“Nah, don't worry I'm not going to prank somebody who can chase me to the end of the earth! I've got an idea, but keep the plausible deniability in case it all goes tits up... I think It'll be fine, though.”

He liked that about the man, he knew how to think or do things a little laterally. Perhaps Andrew's own power was a reflection of some aspect of himself in that regard, because he had always worked best in straight lines of action and thought.

“Anyway, I heard something about meatballs and I don't want them all stolen away by the Hammers again, don't know what they're feeding Yggdrasil, but she ate about three kilos of them last time!”

“She does need like fifteen-thousand calories a day, Marcus,” Andrew pointed out, even as they moved to join the queue for food. 

Ahead of them, he could see Fléchette was still talking with Glint, seemingly having not paused chatting in their time together. 

Glint for her part was looking down at the shorter girl with a small smile on her lips. Thinking about it, it was one of the very few times that he had seen that expression on her face before. 

Well, it was something of a weight off his chest to know that clearly, making friends with Glint wasn't impossible, it just required a different approach to whatever it was he had been doing before.

Chapter Text

For all the time Taylor spent at the New York building on a weekly basis, being a Ward seemed to be a very calm affair.

Perhaps it was the fact that most crime in the city was dealt with by the actual Protectorate members, with the Wards only called on to back them up on rare occasions.

She wasn't sure if she liked this or not. 

Back in Brockton Bay, it seemed as if the Wards were frequently helping out, or were very visible in nature. 

And it wasn't like she didn't do patrols and such, but they were short and safe for the most part.

Instead, far more of her time on the clock was spent doing team coordination exercises, mental exercises or practice, rather than active duty stuff. New York was the largest PRT Department, so she supposed it made sense that they would have the resources to not need to throw them into the line of fire constantly?

Well, either way...

Most of her time was spent on those somewhat awkward exercises, and her free time, in which she was pretty sure she was supposed to be bonding with her team, was normally spent with Lily now. 

“Am I good to join, Glint?” the Archer asked, having walked up with a smile on her lips but pausing, as always, a few feet away.

Taylor hummed back, already sat waiting. 

Every time, Lily asked permission, even if the seat was already available.

She rather liked the consideration.

“I finished Carmilla last night,” Lily said as she moved to take a seat. Nowadays, rather than sit with her knees under her, the other girl would sit with her feet on the sofa, allowing her to face Taylor. 

Taylor had started mirroring her in return, and now their feet would rest either side of the other's to well and truly block off the centre. She had no idea whether Lily did it for comfort, or whether they shared a purpose in making sure that nobody else could join.

Also, it was nicer to face the person you were talking to, and Taylor secretly rather enjoyed watching Lily read, trying to parse through the other girl's emotions, displayed so freely on her face as she read. 

“Did you like it?” Taylor asked back. 

“Yeah. I really did, but I still stand that it would have been better if they ended up together,” Lily replied as she took out the book and wordlessly offered it to her.

Taylor took the book, feeling the small cracks along the spine that indicated it had been a well-used copy. Was it second hand? 

She'd not seen Lily do that really annoying thing of folding the covers against one another, so it likely was an older copy.

“Spoilers,” she admonished, prompting a wince. 

“Oh, sorry...”

“It's all good, so be honest, a lot of these books from this time really had to push a message. Or like, have a moral viewpoint, that's how my mother used to put it,” Taylor explained. 

She set down the copy of Carmilla in her lap, and reached for her messenger bag. 

“Here,” she took out the book she'd been carrying around for a few days and offered it to Lily with just a little hesitation. 

The copy of Dracula was also somewhat battered in places, and its front cover was a frankly rather corny silhouette of a red bat on a black background. 

“Oh, you brought it!”

“Yeah. Sorry if it's a little worn, my mother left little annotations for her university work in the margins, she was a pretty hardcore Lustrumite at the time sooo... slightly strong opinions at some points,” Taylor said.

She didn't have any particular shame in her mother for her teenage years; actually, a lot of her commentary was really rather funny. Especially that full-page margin rant about Dr. Seward at one point. 

“Oh, it was your mum's?” Lily opened to a random page and looking for an example of such.

Was there judgement about it being secondhand there, about it no longer being a perfect copy?

It was silly to worry about; the book was just a somewhat battered text that had seen many years and readings, after all. But at the same time, it was a book that had her mother's little observations, circlings, and margin notes. There was only so much of Annette Hebert left in the world, in terms of the things she had left behind and the testament they made to her nature and character. More importantly, there would never be more of them with time, either. 

It was silly, there were plenty of other books beyond Dracula in the house with her mother's handwriting in them

But it was the fact that here Taylor was handing over this precious thing to the random girl that she was slowly, ever so slowly, coming to trust. Just thinking that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end and her shoulders tense. 

It would take barely a second for her to snatch back the book and fly somewhere humanity could never touch so she could preserve this precious bundle of cheaply glued paper together for eternity.

Taylor swallowed thickly, and remained sat where she was.

Lily paused for a moment, a moment in which there was a dense, heavy silence between them. 

And then, her eyes narrowed just a tiny bit and rested the book against her chest with both hands holding it.

“I'll take extra special care of it, Taylor,” she promised, softly. She looked dead into Taylor's eyes as she said it, as if trying to add all the weight of the world to her statement.

“... Thanks, Lily.”

It was hard to describe the strange relief she felt there.

So she didn't try to. 

Their little exchange of books completed, Taylor opened up Carmilla and began to read, but she made it only to the bottom of the first page when the two of them were interrupted. 

Somebody walking towards them, and making absolutely no attempt to be quiet about it at all, shoes clicking against the marble floor like gunshots. 

Deliberately loud, as if to announce their approach. 

She glanced up. 

Stallion, from her team. 

The young man, who was rather plain looking had a friendly smile on his lips, and of the Lancer group, was perhaps the most laid-back of the lot, happy to take things as they came. Jouster was a leader, somewhat tightly strung at times and always making an effort but always just trying a little too hard if that made sense? Off-Kilter... well, she tried to talk to Taylor about things that she was, frankly, ill-suited to discuss, like her makeup, her boyfriend and that sort of high school trash. Radial was nice enough, but she avoided him because apparently he liked to pull pranks, and Sublimate was an awkward kid who at least seemed to have his heart in the right place. 

“Hey,” he greeted with a lazy wave of the hand. “Sorry to bother you both, just had a quick question, then I'll leave you both in peace.”

Well, she couldn't fault somebody being quick about things; she rather wished other people would learn to be quick about things and leave them in peace.

“I've been thinking about trying to put together a book club. You know, we all read something and get together to discuss it occasionally, nothing too heavy, we've all got stuff to do... just maybe something short and bite sized each month? Hell, we could do a chapter a week, that way it's not anything too much what with work here and school.”

Beside her, Lily hummed.

“And now I'm just seeing how many people might be interested, no point making big plans if nobody wants in... And seeing how you two are always reading, thought you might be interested?”

Well, Taylor supposed that the two of them did spend most of their time reading... or Taylor did, at least. 

Lily would often spend time with other groups, catching up or perhaps playing a brief game or two, but Lily also practically lived at the PRT Headquarters, so she had more time on her hands to spend with others...

She always felt a little jealous and disappointed whenever she was on duty but Lily spent time with others instead.

It was petty on her part. Lily was friends with other people, and free to spend time with them.

Back in the world beyond her thoughts, Stallion looked at her, and she roused herself to focus on the here and now.

“I mean, that could be nice, so long as it's not too much,” she replied, non-committally. “A chapter a week might be for the best, like you said.”

Even with all the time in the world to read, she didn't want to get in the habit of surrendering too much of her spare time to others.

But... a few hours a month to discuss books might not be too bad, especially if Lily was there as well. 

“Yeah, I think that might be nice, actually,” Lily said, a few seconds after Taylor had given her thoughts. “And keeping it short would be a good idea as well, before we get stretched too thin. And if it's just chapters we can do it in more detail as well, rather than just 'give general vibes of the book'.” 

Stallion nodded. 

“Sweet... I'll make a group chat, and we can decide if we want to go ahead and what to read. I'm still talking to other folks, but so far, it's just you two and Jouster who are interested.” 

Suited her, small groups were much more pleasant than big ones.

“Anyway, see you both later, sorry for the interruption!”

With that, he gave them a two-fingered salute and stepped away, leaving the two of them once more with the comfortable silence in which they had been sitting in before.

“Surprised why we've not set up a book club before, actually?” Lily wondered. “I wonder if there used to be one, but it just petered out with time... You okay, Taylor?”

Quite why Lily felt the need to ask that, Taylor wasn't sure.

Was she pulling some strange, reticent expression? Or perhaps Lily had just gotten to know her well enough that she had recognised her non-committal answer earlier. 

“I'm fine,” she said, and then, after a second to marshal her thoughts, added: “I like sitting reading with you and I don't want other people to join us. But I'm happy to discuss books, especially if you are there.”

Just the thought of others joining them prompted Taylor to shift her legs so that the middle of the sofa was still firmly blocked off.

“I like reading with you too, let's keep it as our thing.”

'Our thing.' 

A certain relief flooded Taylor at that, a giddiness that was perhaps a little confusing and childish. 

“I'd like that...” Taylor admitted. 

“Pinky promise?” Lily asked, grinning and extending the mentioned digit towards Taylor across the space between them.

... Taylor used to make pinky promises with somebody before, normally swapping little secrets and promises as they spent time at one another's houses as they alternated weekend sleepovers. 

Almost all of those promises had been broken. 

A part of her wanted more time to think and process, to shift into her Breaker state and think it through with all the ramifications and consequences---

Taylor extended her arm and wrapped her own little finger around Lily's, which was just as warm as it had been when the other girl dragged her to the gym a few weeks ago, and gave it a little shake. 

It was weird, how relieved she felt to have their reading time to just herself and Lily. 

It was a little embarrassing to admit that it caused an odd feeling in her as well, the way Lily smiled at her.

She hadn't realised she was still so childish as to get butterflies in her stomach.

Chapter Text

The sky was beautiful. 

It was easy to spend so much time looking down at the ground that you failed to notice what was right above your head. 

Sometimes you just needed to slow down and stuff, you know, stop and smell the flowers, right? 

Taylor could fly by transforming her body into light and shooting through the sky to reach anywhere in the world in under a second, but a lot of the time it was something of an indulgence to actually fly properly. 

Right now, she was just having fun. 

She transformed her body back to normal matter and allowed gravity to take her, and she went from shooting forward in a straight line into curving downwards. 

It had become a weird habit of hers, to enjoy that sensation of her stomach dropping as she plummeted towards the ground.

Falling with the air rushing in her ears, she saw the world with a strange inversion; the earth with all its textures and patterns became the sky, and the sky became the earth. The horizon was reversed, the sky became a gentle curve in the distance, as if she was in one of those sci-fi tubes with a city inside... a Nielson Cylinder? O'Niell Cyliner?

Something like that. 

Falling at terminal velocity, Taylor noted all the ways the world changed. The air was cold, her ears roared with noise and the wind whipped at her skin and was probably creating all sorts of dreadful knots in her hair. 

It was a world of absolute sensation after the sterility of her Breaker form moments before. 

With the setting sun in the distance, there were so many odd shades to the world, the absolute change in perspectives certainly added something to her appreciation---

In her pocket, her phone was buzzing against her leg. 

Oh, somebody was calling her. 

She took it out and brought it to her ear. The blue and red ground in the distance made it slightly hard to see who the caller was, but after noting who, she pressed the button and brought the phone to her ear---

“KSSSKSSSKKKK---”

It took a moment before she realised that she was still falling towards the ground at terminal velocity, and that her dad probably wouldn't be able to hear her over the rushing of the wind. 

Powers did strange things to a person's mind. 

So she transformed and flew to a nearby hill or mountain, standing at its top with phone in hand. She had no idea where she was, to be honest, but that didn't matter for the sake of taking a call from her dad.

“Taylor, are you okay!?”

“Yeah, sorry, I was flying---” falling “---and got distracted, didn't think to slow down before I picked up,” she admitted. 

“Ah, I see.”

He didn't. 

He had no idea what it was like to fly, but she could hardly begrudge him that, could she? 

“Well, I just wanted to say that I got a good deal so I can do steaks with that sauce you like, if you want?”

Steak? 

It had been awhile since they had something like that, although her dad was quite the savant at cooking them juuuust right... unlike with barbecue, which he habitually butchered. Her mouth watered a little just at the idea.

A part of her wished that she could use her Wards trust fund to buy better food for them...

She could rather understand why a lot of people turned to villainy if the good guys could only offer desperate teenage Parahumans a pittance for the level of power they possessed! Then again, what was the old quote about the path of evil being the easy option, and good being difficult?

“That'd be great, thanks, dad,” she said. 

Honestly, it was really thoughtful of him to go that far, especially with how money had been tight. 

When she graduated to the Protectorate though, she would be earning a lot more than her father, and finally, she would be able to improve his quality of life. 

Even if things had been a little rocky between them, he was still her father, after all.

“Okay, I'll get started on it,” her father said, ignorant to her thoughts of the future. “Fly safely, Taylor. Don't rush back, I only just got in.”

Heh, if only you knew dad...

She'd tried to explain her power to him before, and he'd nodded along as best he could. But just like with the power testers, she couldn't be sure that he really understood what it had been that she was trying to explain. How do you explain the sensations of becoming light, or of having perfect perception whilst moving at thousands of kilometres a second?

Hell, how could she explain the joyous freedom of just shooting through the sky without needing to worry about the world below?

“Love you, dad.”

“Love you too, Taylor.”

Taylor continued to take her time with her journey back, walking and flying through the countryside without concern for getting lost. 

Her mind was such a mess with things that had happened in the day that it felt good to take a moment to decompress. And it wasn't even school or anything like that; actually, her school life was going... really rather well at the moment. She hadn't made any friends there, nor did she really want to, and her studies were going well. 

Instead, it was her work life that was odd. 

How could so much happen in just the space of a few hours? 

The book exchange with lily, the book club suggestion, the pinky promise.

All in quick succession.

Lily had her mother's copy of Dracula, and she had Lily's copy of Carmilla... between the two of them, they really had some sort of vampire coven vibe going on in their reading, didn't they? Maybe that was the sort of thing Lily went for, gothic literature, supernatural literature. Or sapphic, that was entirely possible, given how much Lily had been talking about the pairing. 

It was a shame that Taylor had been spoiled on the plot, but it as the journey and not the destination, and all that. 

If Lily had enjoyed it as an experience, that she probably would as well. 

... When had she come to trust the other girl so much?

Taylor paused, hanging upside down in the air above a small town somewhere. 

The angle of her hovering didn't matter, given that nobody would see her, and it wasn't like she had blood to pool in her head when she was made of light. 

It was... odd, to trust again. 

A rebellious part of her didn't like it. 

It was a coiling, insidious thing that nagged and hissed in her ear that it was just temporary, that they were acquaintances of convenience, rather than friends. That part of her insisted that Taylor kept away boys who wanted to talk to a pretty girl by being the freaky weirdo, and Lily helped her with the gym purely to stay on her good side.

Another part of her said that it wasn't that, that it was real friendship. 

Would somebody use another like that for hours upon hours sat in silence, or go to such lengths to watch the rain falling, discussing their home lives? 

She didn't think so. 

But she'd been wrong before.

She was probably dwelling on it too much. 

All of this navel-gazing in her Breaker state was likely not good for her headspace, but when you had so much time to think, why not indulge in it?

'Not going to solve anything like this.'

So she crossed two-dozen miles more and flew in through her bedroom window.

The smell of dust hit her first, she really needed to give the room a clean up, didn't she? For how grand everything was in New York with its skyline, PRT Headquarters and how fancy her new school was... there was something about the familiarity of home that settled her nerves. 

“I'm home, dad!” she called out from her room, stepping over the landing to begin descending the stairs. 

They creaked and groaned in the usual places, a picture of her mother and father's wedding day in the middle of the stairway smiled out at her, slightly faded from years of brief sunlight hitting it directly. 

“That was quick! I said you didn't need to rush!” he replied, voice just a little distant. 

She found him in the kitchen, currently mixing something on the stove. 

“Eh, I didn't want to hang around somewhere random,” she admitted, moving to his side to look in the pot. Inside, a brown sauce had yet to begin bubbling. “It was that or get a cup of tea somewhere, and to be honest, I just wanted to come back.”

“Everything okay in New York?”

“Um-hm,” she hummed, grabbing mats and cutlery and beginning to set the table. 

It was a tradition between them, one refreshed by recent events. In the past, they used to eat together, but it had been a hollow thing ever since her mother died... now, her father was making renewed efforts to try and be there and do things for her. 

She rather suspected the hand of her uncle in this. Had Keith privately sat her father down and explained just how catastrophic her life must have become to have gained powers as she did?

“School was okay. And there weren't any call-outs at work, so I just sat reading for a lot of it.”

“Honestly, sometimes I think they just have you reading most of the time!” 

Her father gave a chuckle, and left the sauce to continue heating up in favour of checking the steaks and vegetables, before adding:

“Was your friend there?”

It was an innocent sort of dad question, but it still gave her that same pause for thought as earlier. 

“Yeah, we sat together. She's lent me a book to read, and I lent her one of mi-mums.”

"What was her name again?”

“Lily.”

Her father nodded absentmindedly, and continued cooking. 

Taylor got the table set and ready, and waited patiently for the food to be ready, offering to help a few times but shot down each time. 

“Did you see your uncle?”

“Not today, I barely see him to be honest, I imagine he's really busy. But I'll have dinner with him and the family tomorrow as usual. Actually... I think I have an official mentor meeting with him next week...”

Her personal timeframe was kind of messed up at this point. 

“Tell him to pop over sometime soon, and say hello to Arthur and Junior for me.”

“I will. Although I think junior is still grounded.”

“Can't say I'm surprised, Arthur was always house-proud, and I doubt that stain is coming out any time soon.”

Somehow, her cousin had managed to eat an entire family sized packet of gummy bears in the space of an hour and promptly vomited a rainbow on the expensive living room carpet. Said carpet had only been installed a few months ago, and had been part of her uncle's birthday gift to Arthur. 

Either way.

"Did I ever do anything like that?" she asked. 

She hadn't really asked about that stage in her life for a long time; with the heaviness that had settled over their household for so long, it had just seemed... wrong, to try and think of those days.

People could say 'get over it' or that those injuries would heal with time, but they had always just been a family of three; the loss of her mother had left such a scar.

Her father frowned for a moment, his hand slowed in the stirring of the steak sauce to consider. For a few seconds, Taylor wondered whether her question was a painful one for him. 

But she did get her answer:

"No, not quite that bad." He sounded lost in memory as he said it. "One time you got hold of my newspaper and decided to help by laying out all the pages edge to edge on the floor to make it easier for me to read, perhaps because then I wouldn't need to turn them? I'm not quite sure what your rationale was, to be honest."

Oh.

Yeah, she remembered that now that he had said it. 

She also had no idea why it had seemed like a good idea at the time, to be honest. 

Silence fell between them until it was time to eat. 

Food was served up on old plates that bore the hairline breaks and small chips that came with daily use over the course of several years.

The steak was lovely, as always. A pleasant treat at the end of the day, and they ate in a companionable silence. Not a painful, heavy one like before the locker, just... together.

Between her father and Lily, she was coming to cherish silences like this, a productive silence between people, rather than the dull void that she had grown so used to with time.

Chapter Text

“You ready for the club, Taylor?”

This question was posed by Lily as she and Taylor left the gym from their latest session. Taylor had managed a new best on the treadmill, and Lily had even managed to talk her into trying out the rowing machine today... an experience that she wasn't sure that she'd enjoyed at all.

Parts of her body now ached that she didn't even know existed until she hauled herself off the damned machine!

But hey, it was still good exercise, right?

And it did help her sleep... and was an opportunity to spend more time with Lily.

“Um-hm, I read both chapters a few nights ago,” she replied. 

In her hands, Taylor held her copy of the text that the group had ended up choosing for the book club, a short murder mystery from the sixties that Jouster had suggested on the recommendation of a family member.

After a bit of back and forth, the nascent book club had decided to go with two chapters a fortnight; it was probably a pathetically slow speed for a normal club to get through a book, but between school and being in the Wards, they were all busy.

Well, everyone else was busy, but Taylor wasn't going to just read the entire book ahead of time. 

“You?” 

“Yeah, I read it as well. Although I saved it for last night so it'd be fresh in my mind.”

“Did you like it?”

Lily grinned. 

“Spoilers, I need to keep my opinions until later!”

“Pot calling the kettle black right now!” Her voice was filled with mock indignation. “Where was this concern about spoilers with Carmilla!”

“Well, I didn't know you would like to read it!” Lily teased back, before adding. “I mean, I am sorry about that, but look on the plus side, it got us talking to one another!”

Yeah... it did, didn't it? 

Somehow, the two of them sitting in silence together had led to discussions and then Taylor joining Lily in the gym, and speaking with her more and more. In retrospect, it had all rather snuck up on her, hadn't it? Progress by strange increments and milestones that had led to the two girls to go from reading buddies to now walking side by side to the Wards common room for the first meeting of the book club.

“Well, when I read it in the future now I guess I'll need to channel your passion for the main characters' love lives, I suppose.”

“I'll make a shipper out of you yet.”

Heaven's preserve her from such a grim fate!

The two of them arrived just in time to find the rest of the book club gathering. Stallion stood at the central table handing out plastic cups of orange juice as Off-Kilter arranged some homemade chocolate-chip cookies onto a slightly chipped plate.

In all, the club had nine members. 

Taylor supposed that, across the twenty-six or so New York Wards, that was actually a rather good number.

There was Jouster, Stallion and Off-Kilter from the Lancer Team, a ten-foot tall, tree-like Case-53 called Yggdrasil from the Hammer Team, and Lily and Shelter from the Archer Team. There was also a pair of identical, albino twins from the Dagger team, one wearing a Greek tragedy mask and the other a comedy one. Finally, there was somebody from the Shields, a young man called Brillianteer with mousey brown hair who looked almost frightened to be here. 

“Here, want one?” Off-Kilter offered, pushing the plate of cookies towards Taylor and Lily. "I baked them myself!"

Huh, she had no idea that the other girl liked baking... she looked like such a ditzy, fashionable, popular girl a lot of the time...

It was a little abrupt, but Taylor took one, as much to be polite. Lily took two and promptly ate one in two swift bites. 

“Thanks, Off-Kilter,” they thanked, within a moment of each other. 

The other girl of the Lancer team smiled, and then moved on to offer the plate to the twins, who took one each in the same synchronised movement. 

When everyone was present, and they had all taken their seats, Stallion got things going with a clap of his hands. 

“Alright! So, I'm not going to be overly fancy about it, seeing as it's our first meeting and being official would probably be a buzz-kill, but thanks for turning up, everyone,” he began. 

Frankly, Taylor was glad that it would not be overly prescribed and planned out, just... a meet up between people enjoying a book without the additional pressure. 

“Hopefully, this'll be a thing every two weeks, but just to make sure, did everyone manage to read the first two chapters of the 'The Midnight Murder'?”

There were nods.

“Sweet... so, I'm not sure how this sort of thing normally goes, so how about we start by just going around clockwise and giving, like, a brief opinion of it so far?”

One by one, going clockwise, people began giving their opinion of the murder mystery. Jouster liked it, but then again, by his own admittance, he and his family were fond of the genre, and he had been practically raised on them. By contrast, Yggdrasil didn't like one of the main characters in particular, reading out a quote or two from the book her wooden talon held so gently. She had a surprisingly soft voice for somebody primarily composed of wood.

And then, after Off-Kilter gave a somewhat vapid but positive opinion, Stallion looked to her. 

“What do you think, Glint?” he prompted.

Alright, show time. 

She took a deep breath to settle her nerves.

“Well, I kind of agree with Yggdrasil, I mean, Michael is kind of an ass, but if nothing else he's got, like, a strong internal voice. He's not bland, I mean,” she said, trying at first to be guarded but rapidly losing such as the words tumbled from her mouth. 

Everyone was staring at her now, listening, thinking and formulating opinions. Were they judging her as a person based on what she had to say on the matter?

She paused a moment by entering her Breaker state, gathered herself as everyone focused on her, and reached up with a luminous hand to push a lock back behind her right ear. 

Okay, it was fine, just continue to give her opinion. 

She was in the middle of the group, her opinions would be forgotten in favour of the people at the front and back, right?

“---But I think it's got potential? Like, you can't deny that the cliffhanger's kind of intense for just the second chapter, even if it comes out of nowhere. It kind of reflects how self-absorbed Michael is that he couldn't notice anything until he literally walks in on them in their marriage bed?”

She didn't mean to pose it as a question, but perhaps doing so had been for the best, as there were nods of agreement from the other members of the club.

There was no awkward space after her statement, instead the others naturally took it and began further discussions. 

Chapter Text

“Glint, please report to the armoury; it's urge---”

Looking up, Taylor couldn't help but feel vexed as she glanced away from the rest of her team. 

For once, she had decided to try and sit and actually talk and spend time with them, and for the most part, it... wasn't actually going too badly? Even if she mostly sat, watched and listened to the idle chatter of her fellow Lancers rather than being an active participant, it had been going well.

Jouster had just been in the middle of relating a story from when he had just joined about a former villain, now Birdcaged, and how the Protectorate had dealt with them, when the call came in.

It was a shame because he was actually a rather good storyteller when he got going. 

Still, duty called and all that, the others would understand, right?

Taylor left her team behind and departed.

The armoury of the New York PRT was vast and filled with all sorts of objects from the mundane to the Tinkertech, the non-lethal to the 'rated for Brute.'

Of the several people currently present, one of them was on a phone, a woman, and presumably the one who had been sending out the call. She was scarred, and looked as though she may have been a PRT Agent at some point, probably with field experience. 

But she was lacking a left arm from the mid-point of the forearm down, lost in the course of duty?  

Either way, she had the insignia of one of the PRT Quartermasters, the people who maintained and controlled the distribution of equipment here.

Idly, Taylor had to wonder, was being a quartermaster for the Protectorate a good job? Like, you would have to maintain all this equipment, but there was probably so much Tinkertech around that it was relatively hazardous as well, unless you were yourself a Tinker? 

Well, New York had plenty of those, so there was probably a constant influx of new, potentially dangerous technology floating around... okay, most likely a more dangerous job than she'd imagined at first. 

“---nt, oh, you're here.”

The woman managed to avoid too drastic a flinch upon Taylor materialising not far away. 

“Yeah, I do that.”

A momentary pause, the woman took a moment to glance her over, and then, evidently shaking off whatever had been on her mind, she got right to it.

“Command needs you to deliver something because you're the fastest we've got” the woman indicated to a small box that had three containment foam grenades inside. 

They looked perfectly normal, beyond the red logos and signs indicating them to have been made by somebody called 'Hydrargyrum'.

“Prism's team has Solitaire cornered in an apartment complex, but he won't stay there long before he can teleport out---”

“Okay, can I have the address?” 

Her voice was strangely calm, Taylor reflected in a distracted manner, as she reached out and grabbed one of the grenades. 

They were decently heavy, a bit more than average. She'd probably be able to carry one in each hand, but she had a somewhat tight limit on how much she could bring in her messenger bag. Just her stuff for school could sometimes take a trip or two for her to ferry from Brockton Bay to St. Margaret's School, but she'd be able to bring these, she was sure. 

The address was given.

Huh, she hadn't been to that part of the city before. 

“Okay, I'll come back for the third one,” she said, and then transformed, taking to the air and departing the PRT Headquarters and out through the nearest convenient window. 

Locating the delivery site wasn't difficult; she just flew a mile or two up into the air and then zeroed in as needed. Everything was easier to navigate when you could do so, rather than relying entirely on street signs.

And when she found the place, it was to see a Protectorate team marching into the building that had been indicated. 

One of them, a woman at the head of the group, was somebody Taylor recognised from when she first joined; Prism. Legend had made sure to introduce the young woman as somebody notable in the protectorate, a potential future department head somewhere once she had a bit more experience under her belt. 

“Here's the grenades you asked for,” she said, materialising at their side and making sure to leave just a little space so that her arrival wouldn't be a total surprise. 

There were flinches, one of them looked at her sharply and then relaxed.  

“Thanks, Glint,” was the distracted sounding reply, the team of four Parahumans focused on the hallway ahead of them, and Taylor had to power walk to keep up with them even as the grenades were taken from her grip. 

A quick flash back to Headquarters, picking up the third grenade, and then back all in the time it took the team to take another step. 

And then she was just... walking alongside them.

... Was she supposed to hang around now and help, or head back to Headquarters?

“---Goddammit, no, he's already gone,” a member of the group suddenly commented, glowering down the hall. 

“Do you still have a lock?”

“No, he's out of my range.”

Some sort of tracking power? Or just the ability to sense when Mover powers were used?

The expressions of frustration on the faces of those around her said it all; even without needing to see the faces behind the masks. It was an expression she could understand, with all the recent frustrations she had experienced with what she could do versus what they actually had her doing. 

She glanced over. It was a young man, probably not long out of the Wards himself... and even with the mask on, she could see, could feel the frustration just in that gaze, that shared feeling of 'why let this happen?'

“What's the range of Solitaire's teleport?” she asked one of the Parahumans, a quieter fellow who was not speaking with Prism about what to do next. 

“Hundred metres.”

The man had a strong accent, eastern European, although she didn't know exactly where in that part of the world. 

For a moment, she warred with herself. 

With all the frustration, perhaps she could actually do something here, and do it so quickly that if she just did it, nobody would be able to tell her not to do it, right?

Alright then. 

At most, it would only take a few hours in her own time to search everywhere in a hundred metres radius. 

She transformed, and went for a walk, wandering through her picture in motion. 

The surrounding city plunged into a surreal silence that normally couldn't be found whatsoever. She flew through windows when needed and trying to avoid ruining anybody's privacy too much... What was she saying, her power was a constant violation of people's privacy whenever she used it to give herself a little more time, or to wander museums without people knowing! Then again... Thinkers probably had that issue as well, like, any time they went wandering, did they constantly risk learning things they shouldn't?

After a few hundred apartments, empty rooms and other, more suspect ones, she managed to locate somebody who could only be a Parahuman, given the outfit. 

Huh... speaking of, Solitaire had a rather cool one. 

Purple tights decorated with diamond patterns, a mask that obviously had a lot of work put into it... Was it solid porcelain? Goddamn, wasn't he at risk if he ever got hit in the face hard enough? Okay, he may have good fashion sense, but his common sense was rather lacking.

Well... no need to hang around.

“I've found Solitaire. He's in a second floor apartment two blocks over there,” she pointed out to the others upon returning to them.

A pause. 

“How do you know?” 

It came out as an incredulous demand rather than a request to know, the  professional heroes present were all looking at her now. 

“I just checked every building in a hundred-metre radius.”

“You were only gone for a few seconds!”

“I move at the speed of light.”

She didn't know how to put it much better than that, the hairs on the back of her neck were already standing on end. Why were they all just standing around rather than doing something?

“Boss, we've only got a minute or two before he can teleport again,” the eastern European man reminded. 

“Goddammit, let's go,” Prism said, turning in place. 

Oh, for god’s sake.

“... Sure you don't want me to drop a grenade at his feet?” Taylor asked, feeling the need to point out the obvious.

“We can't risk a Ward---”

“It would take me half a second, standing right behind him. I'd be in and out before his heart beats.”

A falter in the team leaders step as she glanced back at her. It felt as though she was being X-Rayed and scrutinised across her entire being. Looking for some hint of deception that didn't even exist. 

Honestly, did everyone have to disbelieve her at every opportunity?

“Control, can I get clearance to use Glint to deliver a foam grenade?” Prism asked, reaching up to press a button on the side of her helmet. 

This was taking so, so long. 

Perhaps it was just the irritation of having been basically unable to do anything for ages, of having to hold back from using her power properly. But now that she was actually in this situation, she could feel a mounting anxiety and irritation at just how slow everyone around her was. 

She understood it; Keith had taken such efforts to make sure that she understood this world, about how everything had to be cleared with the top brass. 

But she could make such a difference---

“Yes, the suggestion was to drop it at Solitaire's feet. In and out in a flash, literally,” Prism continued. 

Idly, Taylor went back and checked on the villain in question.

Solitaire had moved into the next room in this time and was grabbing various things, suitcases and other things. Planning to lie low and change out of his outfit to once more become just another civilian on the street?

Back with the team, Taylor waited impatiently, until Prism nodded sharply and looked at her.

“Okay Glint, we've got permission but only in and out, spend as little time as possible at risk.”

Finally. 

Reaching out, she gestured for one of the special grenades, and it was handed to her. She pulled the pin there and then, then counted. 

One.

“Glint, get---”

Two.

“going---”

Three.

Solitaire was pulling off his outfit's dress shoes when she appeared behind him, tossing the grenade into the air.

In her Breaker state, she stepped away and watched from the other room as it detonated with a bang, the confused cries that filled the air as the foam was released in all directions and then rapidly began to expand. Unlike regular foam, this concoction was more of a silvery-colour, perhaps developed to counter the man's teleportation? 

Well, she didn't need to know how it worked, so long as it did, right?

“What the fuck!”

She could hardly blame the man for the foul language; if something randomly exploded beside her when she thought she was safe, she would probably have a bad reaction to it as well. 

Well, more accurately, she'd probably try to blast her way out and destroy her surroundings. 

... Probably better not to think about, really. 

So she didn't, and instead made her way back to Prism and the rest of the team. The adults all looked at her expectantly when she arrived. 

A faint thrum of success filled her at the fact that she could deliver the good news, that she'd made some sort of difference.

“He's foamed!” she said, struggling to stay professional. 

And from the highest highs...

“Good, can you lead us to where he is?” 

To the lowest lows.

"Fuck! I'm going to wipe that smug grin off Hydrargyrum's face myself!" Prism nearly snarled as she took in the sight of the hollow cavity inside the foam where Solitaire had formerly been. The new ingredient that had been added to the foam, which so much of this operation had counted on, had been ineffective in restraining the villain. 

Perhaps she should have just punched the man in the back of the head to knock him out beforehand... 

But that had too many risks. 

One bad punch could kill a person or leave them with brain damage, and as much as she wanted to use her power or do something heroic, that seemed a step too far. 

Taylor had watched as the disappointed team had cleared away the last of the foam in tense silence. 

Even had Prism and her team managed to surprise the man, the key to their plan would not have worked and he would have gotten away. 

And she felt cheated. For all her power, she'd been able to make precisely no difference to the entire affair.

Her body flared with light, she restrained it, made her apologies and departed, returning to the Lancer team, still sitting in the common room chatting.

For Taylor, it had been hours of relative time since she was last in their presence. She'd mostly forgotten in the interim what it was that Jouster had been telling them a story about... but to them, it had just been a few minutes.

Minutes of excitement, delivery, failure, hope, wandering an empty, silent city and a second failure. 

“Is everything okay, Glint?” Jouster asked when she reappeared. “You disappeared so quickly.”

“Yeah, sorry... they said it was urgent,” she excused.

“Could have still said you needed to go,” Radial grouched, the teenager standing with hands on his hips. 

She really, really was not in the mood to discuss it further, and a part of her wanted to snap at him or say something. 

But she held back. 

“They wanted me to deliver something to them quickly, but it didn't work,” she shrugged. 

Radial opened his mouth, no doubt with some manner of rebuke.

“Drop it,” Jouster interrupted, glancing at the other Mover. “It doesn't matter, others needed Glint for a few minutes more than we did, it's cool.”

She didn't speak much to the others for the rest of the day, perhaps they sensed her irritation and didn't want to take the risk. 

Jouster's current story and the tactical lesson behind it concluded, they did a few team exercises that felt pointlessly easy to her, and then they broke apart to spend the last hour doing whatever they wanted. 

At this point, Taylor was used to this sort of routine. 

Jouster always tried to allocate the last part of the shift to relaxation and socialising with other Wards teams to make sure that everyone knew everyone. Taylor always avoided that and spent that time with Lily. 

The other girl was already sat reading when Taylor arrived, legs splayed to the side and taking up more space than was needed.

Those dark eyes looked up at Taylor for a moment, Lily's normal smile was there but it lessened a little upon seeing her expression. 

Rather than immediately greeting her, Lily silently retracted her legs to make space for Taylor as usual. 

Taylor took her seat, drew out her copy of Carmilla and opened it to her current page. Underneath her, the sofa was squishy and soft as usual, and she relaxed her body with a sigh that she didn't realise she had been holding in for as long as she had.

Her shoulders sagged, her limbs suddenly felt like lead. 

She felt so... done with the day. 

Still, she had forty-five or so minutes to just sit and decompress.  

Beside her, Lily turned a page, her lips tilted up with amusement. 

“Whenever I read Quincy Morris talking, I almost burst out laughing because like... I've never imagined a Texan speaking like this,” Lily mused, breaking the silence. “Your mum's note is hilarious as well.”

Wordlessly, Lily turned the book to face Taylor, finger indicating for the margin.

I swear to god I want Quincy to shout 'yee haw' and fire a gun into the air a few times just to prove he is real Texan and not another Brit in disguise

Despite herself, Taylor huffed a laugh through her nose. Man, she missed her mother's dry humour...

“I guess Mr. Stoker just never got to meet an American in the flesh,” Taylor said with a shrug.  

“A rare and wild breed; the Texan who speaks in full paragraphs like an English gentleman.”

It got a smile out of her, the first in a good few hours. And evidently having been waiting for her mood to lighten a note, Lily leaned a little closer, dropping her voice further so that her next question was well and truly below the din of conversation across the room. 

“You okay?”

For a moment, she wondered whether or not to tell her fellow Ward her frustrations with the day. After all, why poison their sacred little silence, this special thing they had together at the end of the day, with the negativity that she had experienced?

But Lily was focusing on her with that concerned expression, with that genuine inquisitiveness that, from any other Ward, she would dismiss so easily. 

After all, hadn't they already shared enough with one another, and more important things as well, than the frustrations of their work?

Taylor began to explain. 

A bland, by the fact's explanation of what had happened earlier in the day, was she even allowed to discuss it with others? Well, what did it matter when the operation had failed anyway?

Lily nodded along as Taylor tried to explain it all. 

The other girl didn't interrupt to clarify things, simply listening. 

“And I feel so...” Taylor faltered as she concluded and tried to reach what it was that was troubling her. 

What did she feel? How did she try to phrase it to somebody else? 

“They didn't want me to even try to make a difference until they called it in and got permission, and even when I did it didn't work, but I'm getting so sick of being held back all the time...”

A pause, and then Lily nodded.

“Yeah, I get that.”

Did she, though? 

Did she really understand just how much she could do, how much good she could do for the world if she were just able to fully utilise and unleash her power without holding back. 

“I used to have a sword as part of my outfit,” Lily went on, unaware of Taylor's internal ranting. “But because of my power, it was deemed too lethal, and they took it away... but they can't decide on what team to put me on either, so they constantly shift me around because... well, I don't think they know where I fit in the best for their system. Like, I know there is a lot more I could do with my power, but I'm kind of too lethal to use a lot of the time.”

... Okay, maybe Lily could understand on some level.

“It's so annoying...”

“Yeah, I know...”

Lily rested the still open copy of Dracula against her stomach and reached over to pat Taylor's shoulder, giving her an understanding look. 

It was nice that somebody else could understand how it felt. It wasn't quite the same, but it was more than others could provide, well, beyond her uncle, perhaps.

And then a certain realisation struck her. 

“You know, I've never asked what your power even is.”

She'd spent so much time getting to know Lily as a person that she'd never really inquired as to what she could actually do as a Parahuman... was that poor form among Wards?

“That's the bit you focus on?” Lily said, chuckling.

“I don't know, I was too busy getting to know you as a person that it kind of just... slipped my mind,” Taylor admitted, lamely.

“You goober,” Lily had a strange smile there, and she raised the copy of Dracula in a way that hid her face for a few seconds. “Well, my power's kind of odd because it's more like several small ones...”

The rest of their time together that night was spent discussing their powers in the safe security of the little part of the common room they had claimed for themselves. 

Chapter Text

Lily was being weird. 

It was an observation that Taylor had reached within just a few minutes of settling down with the other girl on their usual couch.

Perhaps if Taylor hadn't grown so used to her presence, she wouldn't have noticed it. But when you were hyper-observant of the world around you, you picked up on the small inconsistencies in others that could signal something bad. 

As much as her reading buddy, gym partner and... friend, might try to hide it, something was definitely off.

Lily's fingers were holding the book too tightly, and she had been reading the same page for the last three minutes now. 

Lily wasn't a fast reader, but she was faster than that.

Her eyes, normally so bright, were downcast. 

She'd only given the most basic of hellos and introductions, settling down on the sofa quickly and pulling her legs close, sitting at a frankly awkward angle that looked painful to maintain. 

Maybe Lily was having a bad day? Perhaps she had a headache, or any number of other things that could make a person uncomfortable. 

Taylor didn't inquire as to what was troubling the other girl.

It was a strange part of their little social contract, right? 

Lily had never pushed her to discuss things she didn't want to; they just hung out and had gotten to know one another with time, grown comfortable enough to reveal the small, tiny things they had so far to one another. 

They knew each other more as regular people than as kids with superpowers, and she was pretty sure that Lily preferred it that way? 

To be honest, there were too many questions that, with the perfect power, she would like to ask right now, but couldn't. Maybe if she was some cool, social savant, Taylor could ask what was wrong and try to help the other girl, but she wasn't.  

So instead, Taylor turned a page. 

“Got to appreciate the times when you could randomly just live with a noble family for weeks at a time,” she murmured aloud, the first bit of conversation between them in a quarter of an hour. “Like, 'yes I shall leave my daughter with you for a few weeks or months until I can pick her up, thank you very much!' and that was a thing that was done.”

Lily didn't speak for a moment. 

“It's pretty weird, yeah...” she replied, just a little reticent. “Would be nice...”

... Swing and a miss. 

She had no idea what to do in this scenario. Maybe Lily was having a bad period, and was just in a lot of pain and pushing through it?

Maybe she should go and grab a hot water bottle... no, in the Wards space, it would be incredibly blatant what was going on, and then draw attention and make things awkward. 

So she remained quiet, and continued reading. 

Around them, the Wards common room was quiet. 

Currently, most of the teams were out on patrol. 

Taylor wasn't purely because she was the only Lancer on active duty present; Jouster should have been in as well, but was currently undergoing some mandatory training as team captain, and the others were all enjoying their Saturday evening with friends or family---

“What are you doing tomorrow, Taylor?” Lily said, abruptly.

“Huh?”

“Tomorrow, I know it's the weekend and your day off and all but... are you free?” 

“Yeah, why?”

“I don't know... wondered if you wanted to do something. New York's pretty big and I thought it might be nice to do something different.” Lily looked away. “I've kind of been stuck in a rut recently of just school and work recently, you know?”

It had been a very long time since Taylor had really done something with a friend outside of school or work

“... Okay, that could be nice.” It wasn't like she needed to worry about travel times. “What were you thinking?”

“We could just go for a walk, or maybe something more active, or you know, hang out and all that... there's a lot of museums as well, have you been to any of them?”

“No, but I've wanted to... museums can get a bit lonely by yourself.” 

Something she knew from experience. 

She hadn't been back to the Louvre since that day, but she did visit a rather nice museum in Rome a few days ago, and got to see the Trevi Fountain in all its glory as well. 

A nod. 

“Yeah...”

“Okay then, we'll do something, then. You know the city much better than I do, so what do you want to do? I'm free basically all day.”

Lily smiled, the first time she really had today. It disappeared quickly, though, and Taylor's concern only grew.

“We should get each other's numbers, can you give me your phone?”

The other Ward added her contact details to Taylor's PRT issued phone.

Lily Hanazawa.

She hadn't known the other girls surname until now, but the girl had just trusted her with it so easily. Compared to the minutes, if not hours, that she had agonised over whether to reveal just her first name to the other girl the other day, it rather left her feeling guilty. 

But her power was just a form of cheating in this world, and it had given her the time to work up the confidence to tell the other girl. 

“Wait, give me your phone a second,” Taylor asked, reaching out. 

Lily pulled the phone back automatically, then met her eyes for a second. It was a far more guarded look from the other girl than Taylor was used to, there was something so much more instinctual about that movement that it reminded Taylor more of something she would do, than Lily would. 

But after a few seconds, Lily passed over the phone.

She couldn't help but notice the somewhat faded Hello Kitty sticker on it; she was pretty sure that technically they were not allowed to decorate PRT property like that... but then again, who cared?

Taylor dutifully added Hebert to the surname part of the contact on Lily's phone, and passed it back. 

“...” 

Lips tilted up at the corners in a smile, even if it was a small one, 

“Thanks, you didn't need to,” she said, softly.

“Well, you told me yours, it's only fair.”

“I can afford to be free with it, my surname doesn't mean much,” Lily said with a dismissive shrug. 

“I think it's pretty.”

“Thanks...”  A pause. “Anyway, I'll look forward to it! There's so much to do, I'll show you around Central Park first, maybe? Do a loop and then maybe a museum or two, grab a drink and something to eat? I know a few places---” 

And like that, Lily was discussing plans for their trip out. 

She didn't really think that Taylor had missed that comment, did she?

~~~~~

The next day, Taylor dressed her best and flew over to New York.

With a warning to take care of herself and to not get into trouble, and him giving her some extra pocket money to use to buy food, snacks and entrance to anything she wanted to do, her father had sent her off with a wave. 

And now here she was, holding her messenger bag over her shoulder and waiting for Lily to arrive. 

It was one of those cold, clear early spring mornings that seemed to not have a cloud in the sky, and bring with it a degree of bitter, biting cold. She was glad that she owned so many jumpers, because even with them and clothing underneath, it was still cold!

She only had a few minutes to wait, on the verge of shivering, before her companion for the day arrived, long enough for her to worry over various things. 

“Hey, Taylor!”

She glanced in the direction of the speaker to see Lily approaching

The other girl looked cute in her normal day clothes. 

Like, really cute.

Well, Taylor had noticed before how well she pulled off a lot of things she wore, and took a moment to look the other girl up and down. Honestly, some people got all the luck when it came to looks... in the past she'd often compared herself to Emma, a losing battle in various departments, but Lily was a different sort of beauty entirely.

Self-consciously, Taylor found herself adjusting her jumper and wondered whether she needed to update her wardrobe. 

“Sorry for making you wait!”

Lily's normal energy had returned, the dourness of yesterday replaced with a smile as bright as the early-spring sun 

“It's okay, I kind of cheat anyway.”

“Did you---” Lily began to ask, before cutting herself off. It wasn't like they could discuss work out in public, after all. 

“I have a relative nearby, so I just went to his apartment first and then came down here, you know?” Taylor explained, and Lily nodded. 

“That makes sense... anyway, c'mon, I'll show you around the park, you ever walked around it before?”

“No, I've only ever seen it from above.”

And so, they began. 

Central Park was big, and full of different sights and things to see. For the morning they wandered this way and that, from the south to the north, and the north to the south again in a long circuit. 

Lily barely stopped talking in that entire time, be it rambling about something going on or explaining some local feature. It was as if the girl didn't want a moment's silence to exist in that time, as if every second had to have something filling it. 

And whilst nice...

There were moments in which Taylor wondered how tiring it must be, to always be talking like that. 

She tried her best to match that energy. 

It wasn't easy, though.

After an hour, her throat hurt a little. 

She should have brought a bottle of water with her. 

Was she disappointing Lily by not talking as much? 

Was she boring to be around right now? 

They stopped at a huge lake, and Lily paused in her telling of a story to reach into her bag, pulling from it a brown paper bag.  

Not far away, a rapidly growing number of ducks was amassing, a veritable army of birds advancing to a chorus of quacks and confident waddles. Lily reached into the bag and cast her hand out, throwing a cloud of what appeared to be seeds. 

The fowl tide promptly broke into excitable running in their desire to get to the food and push out the enterprising pigeons that had reached it first. 

“I come here to feed them often,” the girl explained. 

Huh, that must have been how they recognised her, then.

“You wanna?” Lily asked, turning to look at her and offering the bag forward. 

“Sure.”

At Taylor's foot, a rather imperious looking male Mallard quacked with all the demanding authority of a great general. 

So she gave it some food. 

'Our alliance is sealed,' she thought, melodramatically. 

“They like you.”

“I mean, I think they'll like anybody who feeds them... they all look so fat.”

“They're not fat, they're just friend shaped.”

Despite herself, Taylor laughed. 

Honestly, it still felt so strange to laugh like this, so easily and without worrying about others pointing out how strange the sound was. It helped that it was just the two of them right now, without anybody else that knew her. 

They continued on, wandering and grabbing sandwiches from a small (but hideously overpriced) café at the edge of the park. After that, they visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

It was rather strange, to see the building from the ground rather than the sky, as she had before. 

Still, at least this time she was visiting it as a civilian, rather than as a teenaged superhero. It was much nicer to be able to explore it this way. For a few hours, they wandered and made their way through the grand building and its exhibits; both of their art history knowledge was rather limited, but at the very least, they could compare and discuss what there was to see. 

Lily liked the defined art, the things that clearly showed an entire scene with lots of small details in it, like landscapes of farming scenes or natural beauty. 

Taylor rather liked trying to find shapes in the abstract stuff, even if Lily giggled whenever she tilted her head to the side to try and find meaning in a random swirl

It really was a lot nicer to visit a museum with somebody else, it had to be said. She wished that she had Lily at her side at the Louvre. Actually, standing close to the other girl like this right now, she rather wished her friend was there for a lot of things.

And yet... 

Lily hummed aloud to a comment Taylor made, checking her phone and the time on it and face falling just a little. 

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah! I'm all good!”

All cheer again. 

It sounded just a little more forced than before, her friend's smile just a little fixed. 

Was she boring her? Did Lily not like museums? What was she doing wrong right now... or did Lily have some other commitment in the evening? 

“Do you need to be somewhere later?”

“No! No, sorry, I just wanted to know what time it was, I know you probably have dinner to go back to later, I wanted to make sure that we had enough time to finish everything here.”

“... I mean, we can come back anytime, I've been enjoying hanging out with you.”

“Yeah, I'd like that.”  

But despite the comment from Lily, the other girl only seemed to get quieter as the day went on. When they finished the museum, they wandered through the brilliant gold of the evening, along streets filled with a seething mass of humanity. 

“Thanks for hanging out with me today,” Lily said as they headed back towards PRT Headquarters. Evidently, Lily was still mostly living there rather than her foster home. “It's been really nice.”

“Want to do it again some time soon?”

“Yeah, I'd really like that.”

When they made it to one of the secret entrances to the New York PRT building that was used for Wards to secretly come and go, they came to a stop. 

Just walking in through the front doors would be rather obvious, after all, there was an entire system for members of staff to get into work without risking their identities. Oh, but now they would be going their separate ways, wouldn't they?

“Well... here's me,” Lily said, lamely.

“Are you on shift tomorrow? I'm in for some training in the morning, but we can read for a bit later on if you're in.”  

“I'm not on shift, no, but I'll see you tomorrow! Not like I have anywhere else to be, we can sit together like normal or hang out or whatever you want to do, Taylor.”

“Sure, well, I'll see you tomorrow, then,” she said, moving away so that Lily could step through the door

“Wait!” Lily suddenly took a step forward, eyes looking everywhere but Taylor. “You... want to hang out a bit longer?” 

Her voice was small, and unprompted.

She suddenly looked and sounded so much smaller, and some something about it made Taylor think of something the girl once said:

'I've always hated being alone.'

“Sure. I'll just send a message to my dad to let him know I'll be late.”

Chapter Text

In the PRT Headquarters, there were a number of rooms set aside for the Wards.

For some, it was just a stopgap solution, a place to rest if a shift had a late call-out that lasted into the early hours of the morning. For others, be they Wards with difficult circumstances or Case-53s who couldn't go out in public easily, they were home. 

Taylor rather wondered what such a situation would do to a person's mental health, unable to split their home from their work life. 

Well, she may well be about to see it.

Lily had a permanent room with a name plaque on it, although it was her hero name rather than her civilian one, of course. 

The other girl had paused outside it, hovering in front of her door and looking back at her.

Was she checking to make sure that she was still here? Or was it sudden nerves and concerns that she was here, about to show Taylor something she hadn't before? 

This was kind of Lily's home, after all, and Taylor would hate to have somebody just coming to her room in Brockton Bay out of nowhere. 

“We can just read together,” Taylor suggested. “You know... if that would be easier? Or we could find that one out of the way sofa again looking over the street.”

That seemed a more logical solution, a more neutral place to just sit and talk and hang out, rather than invading Lily's privacy. 

“No, I really just want to hang out somewhere away from everyone else,” she explained, before adding, “it's just that I'm not allowed to have other people in my room, you know, inappropriate and all that.”

“We're two girls,” Taylor deadpanned. “Who's going to assume anything more than just us hanging out in our free time?”

“I...” Lily paused, and then gave something of a shaky laugh. “Yeah, that's fair. Just two girls hanging out together.”

She opened the door. 

The room was... kind of small. 

This was Lily's space to just be her, but it was barely larger than Taylor's bedroom back in Brockton Bay. And despite that, it was... well, there wasn't much in it. A single bed, a desk with some papers on it, a wardrobe and dresser. There was also a small TV on a table somehow crammed into this space.

The walls, however, were well decorated. Random drawings, letters, even flyers and posters had all been put up, transforming the sterile cream-white walls into something more cosy and lived in. 

“Sorry about the mess.”

Beyond a bit of clutter, it was really rather tidy. Or perhaps, it was simply a case of Lily not having much to unpack and be untidy with in the first place?  

“It's not messy,” she shrugged. 

Certainly, not compared to the only other girl's room Taylor had ever spent much time. Finding Emma in the Barnes house was simple, you just followed the trail of debris and destruction back to its source. 

“I like the posters.”

“Thanks... I've got a few movies, if you want to watch?”

Gods, this all felt so strange. Taylor had gotten so used to her being the awkward one that seeing Lily fumbling, her thoughts evidently on other things, but trying so hard to make her comfortable. 

Was this how the rest of the world viewed her most of the time?

If so... well, she couldn't say it was especially nice. 

“Sure,” she said, more to settle her friend than out of a genuine desire to watch anything. “What do you have?”

“Not much...” Lily began grabbing things, looking over her selection. 

It was just four movies. 

“Oh, it's been ages since I've seen that one,” Taylor pointed towards a cover. It was an old movie from the sixties or seventies, from the times before Parahuman powers, when the world must have seemed so much more normal and calm compared to today. 

Wordlessly, Lily loaded it into the DVD player and then settled on the bed. 

After a moment, she patted the spot beside her. 

It had been so long since she'd last done something like this.

She paused, a part of her remembering all those old times and how it had all gone so very wrong. Lily's face changed, just a little, something almost worried, scared---

She took a seat, scooting up to sit next to the other girl with a smile, and the film began. They barely got more than five minutes in, just enough for the credits to finish, when there came a knock at the door.

Lily went rigid beside her. 

“Flechette, it's Radiant. Are you in? I saw your key card being used on the system and wanted to chat with you briefly.”

A Protectorate member.

“She's my mentor,” the other girl whispered, eyes still fixed on the door in clear panic. 

Oh, that was annoying. Taylor considered the door for a second or two. 

“Okay. I'll disappear for a moment, if you need to talk to her.”

“You can do that?”

“Of course.”

When you moved as quickly as she did, it wasn't exactly difficult to not be where you might get in trouble. Sometimes she forgot that other people couldn't really understand the true nature of her power, that they still thought in normal time and speed, when everything about Taylor's power obliterated such notions. 

Lily paused, staring at Taylor as if searching for any sort of deception, and then she gave a shaky nod. 

“Yeah... I'm in,” she called out to Radiant.

The door began to open, and she transformed, neatly stepping around the person frozen in the doorway. 

Well, she would rather not wait for the near eternity it would take two people in normal time to talk, and if she hung around, there was a risk of her Breaker form being seen. 

So she went home. 

Appearing in the Hebert family home's kitchen, she grabbed two mugs and set to work making a pair of hot chocolates. She probably had a few minutes while Lily and Radiant talked, so she might as well grab some things to try and cheer the other girl up, given how blatantly Lily was not in the right headspace.  

There was only so much she could carry in her Breaker form, but two cups of cocoa would be fine. And if not, she would just ferry them one at a time. 

Let's see... what was her dad's old recipe? It was the fancy dark stuff that they couldn't buy a lot of, but which they used so sparingly that it lasted for ages. 

She took out her phone and sent a message. 

Glint: Be back soon.

Simple as that, just to let Lily know that she hadn't been abandoned by any means. 

As the milk warmed, she mixed in the powder and added the flakes of dark chocolate slowly. 

The house was silent, her father wasn't back yet by the sounds of it, and she'd made sure to let him know ahead of time that she'd be late anyway.

She took up the cups and, indeed, they were light enough for her to take with her. 

So she did so.

Radiant was still talking to Lily, and Taylor remanifested not far away with the two cups in hand. When they were done, she would simply slip in through the gap in the door, unnoticed by the other Parahuman.

“---don't worry, we're going to do all we can,” Radiant was saying, the words barely just audible to Taylor. “They don't have much of a case at this point, so just leave it with us, okay?”

Legal trouble?

There was a response Taylor couldn't quite hear, and then, with an encouraging smile on her lips, Radiant made her goodbyes and began to turn---

Taylor was in the room and in a blind spot before the Parahuman was even partway through the motion. 

Lily jolted just a little, eyes jumping to her. 

The tension in her posture was obvious, it looked almost painful.

It would be so easy to inquire about what that conversation had been about, given the small bit that she had heard.

Lily looked at her with an expectant, almost sullen look, as if waiting for her to get it over and done with. 

“... C'mon, let's get cosy.”

So saying, Taylor grabbed the blanket and sat on the bed again as she started wrapping it around them. Lily didn't try to stop her, leaning forward a little to meekly allow her to drape the blanket around her back. 

“This is what I always used to do whenever I got down,” Taylor explained. “Blanket, hot chocolate... movie. Although normally a really bad one instead of anything good, you know? I always get caught up in my thoughts.”

“I've noticed... I mean, you seem to spend a lot of time in deep thought.”

There was a pause, and then, Lily shifted a little closer. 

On the sofa in the common space they were always sat the far ends, but right now, they were so close that Taylor could feel the other girl's breaths on her cheek with each exhalation.

Taylor pulled the remainder of the blanket around them so that they were well and truly cocooned together. 

In the dim light of the room's sole lamp, Lily was looking at her so intently for a moment, only to look away when Taylor focused on her. She saw the way that Lily's throat bobbed when their shoulders brushed, and then rested against one another's. 

The girl brought up her cup of hot chocolate and took a long sip. 

“This is nice...” she murmured. 

“My dad's way of making it, he always used to make them whenever me and mum would wrap up like this on rainy days.”

Heh... the 'Princess in the Blankets' as he'd called them...

A distracted nod. 

Lily unpaused the movie, and the two of them watched in silence.

Occasionally, Lily would take a sip of hot chocolate, her dark eyes fixed on the screen. 

In the gentle gloom created by the lamp, they had lost so much of the shades and lustre that Taylor had come to find entrancing, instead they looked more like dark, downcast pools. 

Neither of them spoke.

It was performative, perhaps. 

Taylor barely paid attention to the movie, and in truth... she didn't think that Lily was either. It was comfortable background noise and an excuse to withdraw into their own thoughts, the illusion of shared activity when in truth, it was one another's presence that mattered more. 

It wasn't until halfway through the movie that this thick, almost heavy silence, was interrupted.

“My parents are trying to get custody of me again.”

The other girl had sunk further into the blanket cocoon, her mouth partially obscured and muffled by them, even as she stared fixedly ahead. Was she scared to look away, or caught in a sort of thoughtful trance of the same sort that Taylor so often fell into?

And what did Taylor say to that?

She didn't know Lily's circumstances, but... well, it wasn't hard to guess. 

So instead, she nodded, making the motion obvious.

The encouragement spurred Lily on:

“They never did anything bad or anything, but... they're just... they shouldn't have had kids.”

“Um-hm,” Taylor hummed encouragingly.

Lily's thoughts came out in a staccato of words that slowly opened up until she was speaking seemingly without breathing:

“I hate being alone. I can't stand it. I was always alone when I was a kid. I like what I have here, I need my friends. I don't want them to be all affectionate for a few days but then slowly forget I exist again. I... They'll just make loads of promises over and over about how they'll be better this time and then they'll get distracted with everything else and then it'll just be me, and they say there's low chances of them winning but that's still a chance, right? And then ... yeah...” she trailed off. 

And then, a final, closing thought, in the smallest, meekest voice humanly possible, so quiet that, were it not for the fact that Taylor was right beside her.

“I'd rather be a Ward than that. It's pathetic. I'm pathetic. But if I go back, I'll...”

I'll be all alone again.

... Yeah, she knew that feeling. 

After all, wasn't that the sword of Damocles that hung above her head near constantly? The desire for company was a single hair encouraging her to get off her lonely throne, but that same hair held aloft a blade that warded off thoughts of getting close to others?

All those weeks ago she'd broken precisely because she realised just how utterly alone she was in the world. The wish for somebody, anybody, to be there to help, crushed under the realisation that none were coming?

What did she say right now?

What would she have wanted to hear at that time? What was the sort of thing she had wanted somebody to do for her?

Taylor didn't say anything at all. 

Instead, she turned a little in the blanket and reached out blindly. 

A part of her screamed to stop, to not take the risk of trying to do this, that it was stupid and ignorant and she didn't know enough and the other girl may not like it and that it would destroy whatever this friendship she'd somehow made was but---

Lily was tense. 

Taylor could feel the faint trembling that was disguised under the blankets, the frantic attempt to seem normal. Taylor felt the twitch, the electric moment that Lily registered her touch with slightly wide, unblinking eyes, as if afraid to blink in case she'd disappear if she did so. 

Taylor put her arms slowly around the other girl and began pulling her closer. 

Lily didn't resist, in a moment the other girl's face pressed into Taylor's shoulder. After a second, the other girl reached out almost tentatively to hug Taylor back, and by the second the other girl's trembling grew less controlled and more convulsive... and then the sobs came.

Ugly, uncontrolled sobs, but as they went on, Lily only hugged Taylor tighter and tighter, as if she were the last stable thing in all the world.

Chapter Text

Lily couldn't sleep. 

In a mess of blankets she tossed and turned every few minutes, frustration coursing through her at the fact she needed to sleep, and yet, it eluded her so completely and utterly. 

When the film was over and Lily had been all cried out and her throat was sore with complaints and baring her soul, Taylor had offered to stay longer despite it being midnight. And she'd barely even needed to consider it, either, immediately ready to spend longer. 

But Lily had sent her away, putting on a strong front. She wasn't completely sure that the other girl hadn't seen through it, because Taylor had hovered awkwardly at the door for a few moments before she left, as if she wanted to stay longer.

She hadn't been able to face the idea of the girl giving up any more of her time for her. 

Countless scenes from the last few days went through her mind, the formal notice delivered to her that her parents were seeking custody of her again. From there, there had been a whirlwind of conversations with people in the PRT as they prepared to try and counter it. Meetings with social workers, discussions about her housing that felt far more as though they were poking and prodding at her for the reaction that they wanted, rather than caring about what she did. 

At this point, she was a dab hand at all of this. 

Years ago, she might have felt hopeful. Now, it was a despairing cynicism that ruled her thoughts on the matter. 

Three years.

Three more years before she would be a legal adult, and then she would never need to hear about plans to move her to some new foster home. She would never need to entertain the idea of going back to her parents again. 

In the end, she'd just wanted one day to be a normal girl, and that was why she'd proposed the idea on the spot, to Taylor, to have a day out. 

Just something to distract herself from all that was going on. 

It was selfish, a desperate grasp for control, to use a friend to distract herself from the crushing reality of her situation, yet Taylor had been there.

And that meant more than the efforts of so many other people in her life recently.

They'd walked so far together, and Taylor had endured her being an utter chatterbox. When most of her friends would have only had a few hours, Taylor spent the whole day in her company, had listened intently and at every turn. Even when Lily had begun burning the candle at both ends just to keep herself distracted by not allowing there to be a moment of quiet, Taylor had tried her best.

And then gone further beyond. 

She'd cancelled plans with her dad. 

Stayed with her, been so unflappable and cool when her mentor wanted to speak with her and disappeared without getting her in trouble. 

Hell, she'd grabbed goddamn hot chocolate from... somewhere, and then they'd shared it and watched a movie and just... just...

Not abandoned her like everyone else would.

Lily turned and sunk her face into the blanket that was still wrapped around her. She could still feel the phantom of the other girl's warmth lingering in the old blanket, the ghostly sensations of when their shoulders would meet, for just a moment, as they had sat together.

The clock beside her bed read 3:49.

She hadn't expected things to go this way, it was just supposed to be a day out, and then watching a movie together, you know, like friends did. 

And now, somebody had seen her having a breakdown. 

And now she'd cried, blubbered and been unable to even compose a word amidst sobs when she was a goddamn fifteen-year-old girl. If any of the social support workers had seen her at that moment, they might have had even more fuel for their various files to support their arguments.

Her moment of weakness could be ruthlessly weaponised to support her parents' case, or allow some other group to argue for the benefits of moving her to some alternative foster home. Even the PRT might be willing to do so, using it to point out that clearly, this was all causing undue stress. Even if she wanted to stay here, a part of her was just so sick of her actions being read into for the sake of determining where she would go... only for each place to not want her. 

Everyone in the world had an opinion on her life and seemingly more power than her to make decisions about it.

The only place she'd felt any degree of safety of late was with Taylor. 

The girl was an island in the chaos. 

Always seemingly so calm, or at the very least, controlled, even in the moments when Lily rather suspected that she wasn't. When they sat reading, Taylor, as Glint, could send even the most pig-headed Ward running for the hills with just a sharp look or glower. Even just a few hours ago, when Lily thought she was being so strong and talking about her problems like a rational adult, Taylor had broken down that wall.

She knew perfectly well that Taylor didn't do contact with others, and yet, she'd reached out to embrace her. The girl maintained an invisible barrier around herself at all times, but when those arms came around Lily, it was like that same barrier was protecting her from the rest of the world.

And goddamn, it had been so, so long since somebody hugged her so earnestly. Not just the quick hug of a friend, but the hug of somebody who was seeing everything and understood. 

How was it that a girl who could turn into solid light, the most insubstantial thing in the world, had become a solitary rock in a stormy ocean?

It was unfair. 

It was so fucking unfair. 

Why was it on another Ward to be her source of stability and strength? 

A Ward who looked at her with those big green eyes that could be so sharp and piercing one moment, and then so soft and understanding the next! 

Just the thought made her bury her head into her blanket to repress a frustrated, sleep-deprived scream. 

Lily really should sleep, because she'd had barely any at all in the last day or so. 

But she couldn't. 

She'd call in sick from school tomorrow. The bastards could understand for once in their lives that no, she was not okay right now. 

Lily flopped sideways, a heady combination of exhaustion and the familiar pangs of so many other emotions filling her. When she had said, earlier, that she hated being alone, it was precisely because of this. Without others around her, she would begin thinking, and thinking could lead to dangerous places indeed. 

Like thoughts about the quiet, commanding strength of Taylor's arms, which hadn't released her as she cried even as she got tears all over the other girl's shoulder. Or how, in the depths of her weakness, Lily had wanted the other girl to promise to stay with her all night, to consume every moment of Taylor's time and existence all to herself to ward off the dark. 

A solitary, stable anchor able to tether to her everyday existence.

A companion to ward away the dark thoughts and not let her go for a single moment, to make sure that she wasn't alone when it felt like everyone else was examining her for something they wanted. 

And all her recent reading wasn't helping, because she could just imagine, for a moment, that they were Laura and Carmilla. But between them, who was who?

'You will think me cruel, very selfish, but love---'

Shut up, head!

Hadn't she leaned upon her friend enough tonight? How much of an imposition had she been on Taylor, who had so much better stuff to do with her time than consoling her? She'd lost friends before by coming on too strong in their relationship, burning out the wick of their friendship by being a blaze, rather than a candle.

Taylor had a family who loved her and a stable home and so, so much else that Lily couldn't help but envy. Yet, it was Taylor herself that she wanted the most right now, not all the things that the other girl had. 

'How jealous I am you cannot know. You must come with me, loving me---'

It seemed as if she were Carmilla, drawing infinitely from the deep well of Taylor's patience, time and empathy, like a leech sucking away all there was of a person. 

How loathsome.

But just like previous times she'd fallen down this rabbit-hole and felt so completely and utterly alone, she couldn't stop the powerful pangs just at the notion of the other girl being gone.

And that was the stupidest thing!

Lily had friends, plenty of them! Even if they were divided across several Wards teams, there were plenty of people that she could, in theory, lean on for sympathy and consolation. She'd always tried to avoid doing so, avoided imposing herself in the knowledge that anything she said to them could be fed back to others and used against her with time. 

She wasn't so blind as to think that Shelter wouldn't leak concerning statements back to those above them... and that was part of the problem. Dozens of friends, all concerned for her, who would give things away, thinking that it was for the best that others knew about her situation. 

Right now, there was only one person she wanted at her side, comforting her. 

...

...

... God, she was such an idiot.

Lying back, Lily stared numbly up at the ceiling. 

She was all cried out from earlier, and the agonising, near-sleep hallucinations and hysterics that had occupied her for the last few hours had faded away with whatever strange clarity now came over her.

Lily was in love; the crush that had been slowly building had blossomed into something undeniable now.

... Or she was just emotionally vulnerable from the instability of her situation, and desperately latching onto the first available person to show her affection.

Her head said it was the latter, her heart, the former... 

It wasn't even the first time this sort of thing had happened.

How many times did a teenager fall in and out of sudden, passionate 'love' for another? Hell, how many times in the last year had she looked, in secret, at another girl in the Wards or school and fantasised, just for a moment, on what it would be like?

The brightest crushes burned the shortest, and right now, what she felt was a desperate, all consuming thing that made something flicker and flutter in her breast. 

And goddamn, did she just want to do something stupid right now. 

'Hey Taylor, can you come back tomorrow to spend more time with me?'

'Want to watch another movie tomorrow night, same place same time just the two of us?'

'Taylor, I want to be in your arms forever, I want you to look at me like you did earlier and promise to never leave me.'

She heaved a great sigh and closed her eyes. 

Stupid thoughts born in the dead of the night. 

Blindly, her cheek sought her pillow, and she pressed her face into it without reservation as she resolved herself to sleep. The morning would bring clarity that her sleep-deprived self couldn't find, and perhaps, her head or heart would manage to win out over the other in that time.

A traitorous part of her thought that the warm, enclosing sensation of the blanket felt so utterly lacking compared to her friend's embrace.

Chapter Text

The next day, first thing, Taylor was scheduled to have a meeting with Legend. 

Frankly, she wasn't in the mood for the meeting, but it had to happen. 

She'd wanted to check on Lily first, but she hadn't managed to find the other girl when she arrived, even after using her Breaker form to search the building from top to bottom. 

She was probably still asleep, she'd had a long night, after all... 

Lily hadn't replied to any messages Taylor had sent. 

Had she fucked up somewhere? Was Lily perhaps feeling awkward about things and now trying to avoid her? She had arrived early, and the girl was entitled to some beauty sleep if she wanted it, there was no need to immediately assume the worst... right?

Taylor stood outside Lily's room for a few minutes of her relative time, a glowing hand half raised as if to knock on the door. Of course, a hand made of light couldn't knock... but she could think through the matter far easier like this. 

Did she check on Lily, or would that be too much?

She left it; Lily was probably just resting, she would just keep an eye out for her. 

A moment later, she appeared outside the office of Legend, ready for her meeting. 

Said office was really bland. 

For one of the nation's most renowned superheroes, her uncle had such a soulless, corporate work space.

White walls with only a few decorations, a few newspapers with headlines in some way relating to his efforts over the years, some greyed and faded with time, and a rather overgrown Jade plant on the windowsill.

She supposed that the setting fit the image of the Triumvirate member, in a way. Sanitised, clean, suitable for a hard worker. But compared to the Keith she knew, the uncle who always remembered her birthday and had done so much to help her try and get her life back on track, it was just so empty.

“Good morning, Glint,” Legend said, smiling from behind his desk.

Taylor tried to remember to breathe and keep calm, reminding herself that this was just a friendly catch-up between mentor and mentee. They'd had them before, of course... but the previous times, Taylor hadn't failed to bring somebody in. 

How long would it be before the Solitaire situation was mentioned?

“Good morning, Legend, how are you?” she replied, taking a seat opposite him and putting her hands in her lap. 

“Not too bad, glad that things have been rather calm for a while I must admit, although I shouldn't say that, it normally means trouble is coming!”

She wasn't sure whether she should look forward to trouble, to be honest. Sure, it might give her opportunities to use her power, but it would only cause problems for others who didn't have the benefit of basically being untouchable.

“How are you feeling, Glint? Things still settling?”

“I'm doing better, I guess.”

Her uncle---Legend, she needed to think of him just as Legend right now, opened his hands, indicating for her to continue. He probably didn't need to hear about the book club, but still, he'd asked. 

“We started a book club, it's nicer to speak with just a few folk at a time.”

She'd mentioned the club offhandedly at their last Friday meal at Keith's apartment. But Keith Jr. kept interrupting to talk about dinosaurs, so it had been a little stop-start.

“Yes, I saw that Stallion had put in a permission request to start up something like that,” Legend nodded, somewhat having to play along. “What are you all reading?”

“The Midnight Murder, I can't remember the author's name, though,” she replied. 

This was silly, he probably didn't care about something like the book club, was she just wasting time by discussing that sort of stuff? Or could she argue that it was worth bringing up because of team bonding and all that?

Either way, Legend didn't seem to mind it. 

“That's great. We've been trying to encourage a few more activities between the teams for a while now, but the schedules always get a little messy with trying to organise things like that... it's something of an occupation issue of working in a large organisation.”

Yeah... she could understand that. 

It was something of a miracle that they had managed to find a time slot that worked for everyone, and it was probably going to be a little touch and go in the future to continue to make it work. 

But Stallion seemed a dab hand at organising this sort of thing.

“Yeah, and it's nice to have something shared to talk about outside of Wards stuff, you know? I've been talking to Jouster and Stallion and Off-Kilter more.”

“That's great to hear. Well, I hope that you guys can keep the club going, it would be great to have it become a staple.”

Legend reached out and picked up a piece of paper from his desk, and glanced over it briefly. 

“It's great that you're settling in better, I was starting to worry that you were struggling to integrate and if there was anything I could do to help. Oh, I saw that you and Fléchette are also getting along? A few times when I've visited the Wards space, I've seen you two sitting together reading.”

“She's a friend, yeah.”

Should she say something about what was going on with Lily and her personal life, on how the girl needed some sort of support that she clearly wasn't getting at the moment? 

It was perhaps the logical thing to do... but the PRT was already helping with the legal side of things.

And also... would Taylor have wanted somebody to reveal that sort of thing to others? She'd already had so much of herself weaponised against her and revealed to the world by Emma in the cruellest way that the idea of talking about Lily's private affairs felt utterly wrong. It wasn't her business, or at least, it wasn't until Lily asked for help, and then she could help in her own way, right? 

Even if it was just watching movies, making hot chocolate and being a shoulder to cry on. 

Plus, if there was one thing she'd learned from Winslow, it was that large organisations with plenty of working parts and people in positions of power were absolutely terrible with dealing with interpersonal issues.

Ignorant to Taylor's internal thoughts, Legend replied:

“Good friends at work do make things a lot easier, you'd be amazed how much they can make slow days go faster around here... Anyway, I hope you don't mind me moving on, but I wanted to speak to you on the situation with Solitaire the other day. Prism actually came up to speak with me about it not long afterwards---”

Taylor braced herself for the complaint, had the other woman thrown under the bus and blamed her for the failure? It wasn't her fault that the stupid Tinkertech hadn't worked! 

Slipping into her Breaker form for a moment, she thought about responses, she considered and pondered a half-dozen ways to respond to the incoming complaints about her. It would be fine, Keith would listen to her about it, tell her to take it on the chin and help mitigate it all, right?

“---and was impressed with how well you handled the situation.”

Evidently, her surprise showed, as Legend smiled a little.

“She said you were very mature and levelheaded about everything going on, even if officially you should have vacated immediately, your efforts to help reflected quite well.” 

“Oh, that's... good? I mean, I just tried my best to help out, and it's not like it worked out in the end.”

She tried not to sound overly petulant with that.

And of all the responses in the world, from nodding gravely to reprimanding her, Legend gave a shrug. 

“Powers are weird, Glint. Despite the best attempts by people to understand them, even some of the best don't really have answers... sometimes funny things happen and despite the best plans, things go wrong or not how you expected. I feel like I continue to get surprised every day in this job.”

She didn't like that sort of idea, the notion that sometimes, no matter what, things just didn't work.

Before she could dwell over long on the issue, Keith continued:

“What's more important is that you were able to handle the situation with maturity... even if you did give Prism some worries by pulling the pin out and waiting a few seconds right next to her.” His voice was just a little more firm for what he said next. “I would heavily advise that you try to communicate much more clearly in the future with this sort of thing, Glint.”

It was phrased as a suggestion, but she could see it for what it was, a demand, and having said it, she noticed that he ticked something off on a piece of paper. Did he have a checklist of things to make sure to cover today?

“... Yeah, I probably should have done that,” she conceded.

At the time, it had seemed perfectly obvious what she was intending to do, but outside the adrenaline of it all, she supposed it made sense.

“The heat of the moment affects people differently, but trying to encourage that consideration and clear communication is vital to what we do.”

“She also recommended that the PRT try to find a better way to make use of your abilities as well.” Legend paused, lips quirked in some sort of amusement. “Well, she used stronger language than that, but official policy is to avoid swearing in front of Wards to the best of our abilities.”

Why would Prism swear on that?

Frankly, she hadn't imagined the woman would be the sort to cuss out casually, but maybe the frustration of failing to capture Solitaire had gotten to her? Well, either way---

“She's put in a request to change up what you can bring to a fight, in terms of your equipment, and I signed off on it as well after a bit of discussion. We've put it to the Director, and hopefully, we'll get a response soon.”

Despite herself, Taylor found herself leaning forward. 

“What sort of changes?”

Chapter Text

Taylor stared fixedly at the page before her. 

It was late, much too late for her to be staying up and reading instead of getting sleep before school tomorrow. Yet here she was, hooked on every word, even as she felt heat rising up the back of her neck and in her cheeks. 

“I have been in love with no one, and never shall,” she whispered, “unless it should be with you.”

How beautiful she looked in the moonlight!

Shy and strange was the look with which she quickly hid her face in my neck and hair, with tumultuous sighs, that seemed almost to sob, and pressed in mine a hand that trembled.

Her soft cheek was glowing against mine. “Darling, darling,” she murmured, “I live in you; and you would die for me, I love you so.”

She wasn't normally one to daydream much; she got drawn into her own thoughts a lot... But now, Taylor found herself imagining, unbidden, the scene, with Lily and her sitting together, perhaps in the other girl's bedroom, all wrapped up in the blankets again. And in that warm cocoon, she could see, could practically feel the phantom sensation of Lily taking her hand and burying her face into her neck---

Taylor resisted the urge to launch the book across the room in impotent frustration. 

Instead, she snapped the book closed with a loud 'fwhap!' and set it down with forced calm on her bedside table.

... A moment later, she wanted to pick it up again and keep reading. 

Oh god, now she was doing exactly what Lily had been doing! 

Taylor didn't need a mirror right now to know that she was blushing bright red and probably looked like an idiot. 

She reached up and took off her glasses, rubbing at tired eyes that should have started resting a good hour or two ago. Yet despite the physical signs of tiredness, her mind was alight with a strange, nervous energy.

It was undeniable.

She was attracted to her only friend in the Wards.

Somehow, Lily was the person who had slipped past that barrier she had thrown up around herself, and now she was crushing hard on her. 

Was it simply a case of being the first person she'd really been able to connect with in a long time and growing overly attached to her? 

Back before everything happened, she'd been very close with Emma, to the point that some might have called it too close, and in the end, perhaps that closeness was what had freaked the other girl out.

It was just a crush, there was no need to overthink it. 

Teenagers had crushes all the time, right?

Sure, Taylor hadn't had one in ages, but that was mostly because her life was an utter shit show for the longest time. A consequence of ceasing to see people her age as anything more than 'bully', 'potential bully' or 'Greg'.

Thinking about it, who had her last crush been?

Taylor glowered at the opposite wall. 

Yeah, let's not dwell on that too much, even if at the time she'd been pretty sure that it was just the normal feelings you had for a best friend. 

Still, it remained a point that after so long avoiding thinking about these things, it had become a sort of second nature to just... not internalise it? When you stopped hoping and dreaming of such a thing, relationships became something that happened around you and to other people, a physical law that drew people together that you could observe but not interact with.

And sure, she dwelt on how other girls looked and how pretty they were and how nice their outfits looked on them. Especially compared to boys, but that was just because boys were just... just...

Not interesting.

Like, they were fine as people, but in terms of attractiveness she couldn't really think of anyone male that she had ever had lingering thoughts about beyond 'oh, he's pretty attractive' in a purely aesthetic way. 

Not like Lily or women in general.

... Fucking hell, she'd been so firmly in the closet that she'd practically set up a mailing address to it!

She really hadn't ever imagined that such a realisation could come about just from reading a goddamn book, she'd always thought it would be something far more intuitive. That or her time at Winslow had utterly derailed the natural course of working such a thing out. 

Yeah, let's go with that, blame Winslow as the cause of this embarrassing revelation taking so long.

Okay, blame shifted from her onto something else.

Anyway, it wasn't like Lily might like her back, not somebody so weird looking and gawky as her. 

Even though Lily always wanted to sit and read with her, and kept insisting that they go to the gym together... and they had kind of gone on a trip out together the other day. Did that count as a date? They'd done the sorts of things that people on dates did, but she was probably reading too much into it, right? Lily had wanted a distraction from what was going on in her life, so it probably wasn't a date.

... Lily had said that she preferred reading sapphic relationships, right?

But did that mean that Lily liked girls as well?

And also, did Taylor properly like Lily? Like, really like her? Or was this just a momentary, fleeting crush that would peter out with time? 

And why did the notion of that happening make her feel so down?

...

...

... Arrrrghhhhhhhhhh god fucking dammit!

She was the fastest thing on Earth, and somehow coming to a decision about something that should be utterly basic and intuitive about herself was like trying to rip out a tooth!

Fuck this angst!

Frustrated, Taylor got out and stormed to the window as she assumed her Breaker form. 

And then she flew around the world about eight times in the span of just over a second. Near breaking the laws of physics made more sense as a thing to do to relieve her stressed, angsty thoughts than actually trying to sit down and work them out, and she was most definitely not trying to run away from the problem by distracting herself. 

She went to Antarctica and spent time examining the inordinate pudgy-fluffiness of a group of Emperor Penguins. The group of chunky birds stared back with equal parts confusion and beady-eyed simplicity, blissfully unaware of her staring back at them in her Breaker state.

For a few minutes of her relative time, she floated at the top of Mt. Everest and took in the sight of the sun rising over the distant horizon miles upon miles away. 

She floated around the Sistine Chapel and took in the art, and spent a while wondering how long Michelangelo must have spent painting Jesus' abs. She still preferred the statue of Cupid and Psyche, art-wise, even if the vast painting was lovely. 

When she returned to her room in Brockton Bay, barely any time had passed at all, and she felt no better distracted or realised on the matter of her burgeoning lesbianism than she had been beforehand.

... She should probably talk to her Uncle about this. 

After all, he was gay. It would be a lot easier to work things out by talking to somebody who had actually been through the whole realisation of such, right? 

Like, she didn't doubt that her dad would support her if she came out, but she'd rather take just a little longer to really work out what was going on with herself before taking that step. After all, if it was just a silly little crush that she would move on from, it would be rather silly to make a big song and dance about it all. 

Across the room, her phone pinged. 

She glanced at it for a moment, and wondered whether she should check it. 

It was probably just a work notification, like a reminder not to eat other people's lunch if it was in the fridge, or clarifying patrol schedules for the coming week. 

Then again... it could also be a message from Lily.

Her phone then pinged again... and again... and again, a rapid fire series of chimes that indicated either something was very wrong, or part of New York was probably on fire. 

She got up and checked it, alarm rising:

Lily Hanazawa: Hey, want to go for another walk sometime soon? Or to see something? Theres a movie I want to see but it would be more fun with somebody else and I might see tomorrow.

Lily Hanazawa: I have a thing tomorrow to do with the case but if you're free after maybe?

Lily Hanazawa: It'd be nice to have something to look forward to after.

Lily Hanazawa: No pressure of course I know you're busy, sorry I shouldn't bring my stuff into it.

Lily Hanazawa: Sorry I've put this really badly.

'Yes!'

The fact that the reply she wanted to give without even thinking about it really said enough, didn't it?

And a movie date would be nice...

And here she was, now reclassifying time spent with Lily as dates.

Taylor Hebert: Sure

Taylor Hebert: That would be nice!

Taylor Hebert: When are you free?

Her heart did a little flip when Lily replied quickly, which meant she was excited by the prospect, which might mean---

She really was falling headfirst down this rabbit hole, wasn't she?

Lily's 'thing to do with the case' turned out to be an actual hearing. 

The minutiae of how the system worked, and how it would all interact was something Taylor didn't know, and had resolved to learn more about with time. But the thought of how stressed her friend... crush, must be right now, was getting to her.

Bomph! 

The sound of a heavy impact filled the air.

Was she sitting in some lonely courtroom with some bland, PRT appointed lawyer who barely knew her as a person? Were her parents in the same room, making her feel uncomfortable, making those promises to do better that had so distressed her the other night?

Just the idea made her irritable, the thought of Lily crying again was unpleasant, and even if they had a movie planned for later...

She should be ready to cancel, if things had gone badly and Lily just wanted to hang out in her room again, or wanted to vent and hug it all out... well, she wouldn't say no---

Bomph!

With every blow, the giant Striker-rated punching bag was sent swinging through the air.

Accelerating her fist for a fraction of a moment in her Breaker form was enough to turn her punches from pathetic into terrifying. Learning to control that momentum had been something she'd been working on ever since that day when she'd saved Fléchette and Shelter. 

With just a kick, she'd sent that big guy cartwheeling through the air, so learning to better understand the interactions between her strength and speed had been something to focus on. 

When your fists had the potential kinetic energy exceeding a freight train, controlling it wasn't always easy. 

Everything about her power was just so excessive... 

But she was getting the feel for it with time.

And it was a distraction from her thoughts about Lily and how the court meeting was going. 

“... Errr... Glint?”

Taylor glanced to the side, the hairs on the back of her neck raising immediately. 

She hadn't realised that she wasn't alone in the gym tonight, normally she would have noticed the moment somebody else arrived, and made sure to depart before they noticed her.

And didn't that just go to show how distracted she was?

Either way, the new arrival was Off-Kilter. 

Her fellow Lancer had clearly been watching her before she spoke up, as the dark-skinned girl's brows were raised high, and she'd not approached any closer than a few metres.

The girl reminded her too much of Sophia sometimes, and not just because she was black, hell, that was the least of it. The other girl was attractive and had a similar build as well, with an at times petulant, aggressive tone that grated some part of her that hadn't gotten over Winslow.

At least she was friendlier than Sophia... almost painfully so at times.

“You alright, Glint?”

“... Yeah, fine,” she said, before adding, perhaps with some defensiveness, “why?”

“You're hitting that bag like it owes you money.”

Taylor gave a non-committal shrug. 

She'd much rather not talk about what it was that was on her mind, because frankly, it wasn't Off-Kilter's business. And not just her tortuous internal questioning about her sexuality, omnipresent as it was... it was because it was also Lily's business as well. 

“Just working through some things.”

Because getting in some exercise and punching a bag was somehow more satisfying and productive than anything else right now. 

Off-Kilter gave a slow nod.

At that point, her phone dinged as a message came in, and in a moment Taylor drew it out and began reading as messages started coming in. She'd been waiting to hear how things were going all morning.

Lily Hanazawa: No progress at all.

Lily Hanazawa: Judge called things early until more evidence can be provided, didn't seem happy with some of the reports supplied so I'm hoping they misfiled some stuff

Lily Hanazawa: So here's hoping.

Lily Hanazawa: I didn't like seeing them again.

Goddammit!

It was no doubt naive to imagine that this legal matter could just be smoothed over and dealt with in one court visit, but even then, she'd really, really hoped it would be. 

The replies carried an invisible weight of stress and strain. 

Filled with irritation, Taylor lashed out, momentarily allowing her irritation to shift her to her Breaker form and back.

BOMPH---WHAM!

The sound of the punching bag slamming into the ceiling followed the boom of her fist breaking the sound barrier.

A moment later, Taylor side stepped the bag as it came swinging back down at speed.

“... Just working through a few things,” she said, by way of a somewhat embarrassed explanation to Off-Kilter, who was focusing on the flecks of plaster that were falling from the ceiling where the bag had hit it.

Okay, she might have gone a little far with that last punch...

After a moment, Off-Kilter looked back at her, her expression transforming into one of understanding, and then into something... satisfied. She took a confident step forward. 

“... Girl, just dump him, he's clearly not worth it.”

... Huh?

“I---”

She was promptly talked over.

“Trust me, Glint, I've been through it. Me and my ex? Exactly the same sort of thing, big promises all over the place but always giving the bad news over text, you don't deserve him.”

... Okay, so swing and a miss on Off-Kilter's part, and heaven's preserve her from more of Off-Kilter's girl talk! She'd heard all about the other Wards' lack of luck in love, had heard all about her previous relationships and the seemingly weekly drama between the Lancer and her current boyfriend in the Hammer team. 

It was well-intentioned advice, at least. 

Off-Kilter continued to talk her ear off for a few more minutes before getting started on the treadmills, and Taylor was able to escape and clean up. 

She wasn't going to start exercising around others any time soon, it was bad enough that Off-Kilter had seen her at all. 

Still...

Lily Hanazawa: Are we still okay to see the movie?

Lily Hanazawa: I may not be the best company but I really want to distract myself right now.

Taylor Hebert: Of course, looking forward to it even if things went badly.

She needed to get ready for the movie later.

All day, she'd been distracting herself with worries about how the court stuff between Lily and her parents was going to go. But now that it was over without a resolution, she had to face a far more terrifying notion.

Going to see a movie with her crush after a bad day.

Chapter Text

The movie theatre was nearly empty.

It'd been ages since she'd last been in one, but clearly the movie they were seeing was one that didn't exactly have the best publicity. Considering how they were in one of the biggest cities in the world, surely this place should be packed?

That, or they had just managed to get a good time. 

Either way.

The movie started up with the normal half a dozen advertisements for other movies.

“I hate this bit, I always just want to get to the movie,” Taylor grouched, reaching down and grabbing a piece of popcorn. 

“I always just say it as part of the experience, to be honest... like, the trailers often have the best bits of films in, so I get to see the only bits worth seeing of some of the bad ones by seeing them, you know?”

“I feel like that's cheating.”

Lily shrugged. 

“I just see it as saving money. I usually know very quickly whether I like something and then my opinion doesn't change about it,” Lily said.

“... I mean, judging a book by its cover?”

Lily pulled a face at that, and Taylor struggled to hold back a wince. Smooth. 

Man, why'd she have to put her foot in her mouth like that...

“It's not that bad. I don't know, I just tend to have a strong gut feeling about things, you know?"

... Well, now Taylor felt deathly curious, a sort of curiosity that demanded to be satisfied. She looked at Lily for a long moment, wondering whether she should ask the question.

“... What did you think when you first saw me, then?”

Lily paused for a moment too long.

“Hmm... I thought you were pretty interesting, I guess? You kind of just appeared from nowhere, dealt with that guy and disappeared, then you were just kinda reading a book like it was nothing? I thought it was pretty cool.”

Well, better than the handful of alternatives that immediately came to mind.

Still...

A part of her had hoped for something a bit more, it was rather disheartening to know that you were only 'kinda interesting' when you first met somebody. 

Bleh. 

That was just this silly attraction speaking, wanting Lily to have immediately seen something special in her.

They were just friends, after all. 

“What about me?”

“Huh?”

“What did you think about me when we first met?”

Her friend was now looking at her fully, half her face in darkness and the other lit by the rather harsh light of the trailers on the screen in front of them.

... Well, she hadn't exactly had the most charitable thoughts...

“Um, I can't really remember?” 

“Really?”

Lily sounded disappointed.

“Well... Um, I wasn't exactly in a great place back then, so I was probably a little suspicious of you to be honest, I... well, I told you that I didn't have the best time of things before...” she admitted. “But... yeah. I remember wondering exactly why you were hanging out with me...”

“Yeah, I get that.”

As in... Lily had guessed such? 

Taylor frowned, trying to work out what exactly Lily meant by what she had said, but before she could formulate her words, they were interrupted by the last trailer coming to an end, and the movie beginning. 

She turned to focus on it, but her mind was still turning over the question for the next few minutes. 

Well, she had to imagine that she hadn't been the easiest person to be around at first, trying to keep others away... well, she still was, wasn't she? But keeping herself safe and avoiding another Winslow situation still pressed itself as a need, just because Lily was one of a handful of people she could trust to actually open up to was just because she was... well, Lily. 

Chapter Text

School was rather boring. 

This was not to say that Taylor was a genius who conquered things like schoolwork with a casual ease and left all her contemporaries in the dust, just that it was long. 

And for a person with all the time in the world, that was saying a lot. 

Taylor had developed a bad habit of leaving during class to go and explore things and take her mind off matters. Once a day, or just when she got bored, she would transform and go for a flight, normally at lunch when she could afford to really take her time without risking anyone noticing her flickering in and out of existence.

Be it the Louvre or other museums, great wonders or just random places in the world, sometimes she just needed to clear her head of the chatter that filled it

It wasn't like the world was going anywhere in the in-between, anyway

Her picture in motion would progress less than a fraction of a moment in the time she needed to settle herself, and she could return composed and refreshed. 

It was cheating, but she'd accepted that it was just a fact of life. 

Other students didn't have access to these liberties. But she'd suffered to gain her powers, more than any of these rich kids surrounding her could possibly know, so she deserved to use her powers to have some time to herself. 

Currently, Taylor was floating upside down somewhere over the Midwest. 

She wasn't quite sure where, but she'd wanted to see the nation's colossal breadbasket... even if early spring wasn't exactly the best time to do so. 

'Yup, that's a lot of farms alright,' she mused, staring at the vast expanse of flatness, tilled land that stretched from one horizon to the next.

It was a very monotonous, samey landscape. 

It did little to distract her from her thoughts that had been nagging at her for the last few days. 

... Lily knew when she used her power. She was the only person who could seemingly notice, to know when she was vulnerable and needed time to process things. 

Taylor could pretend to the rest of the world and cheat the system to take as long as she wanted with something, but she couldn't lie to Lily. 

If Taylor had her physical body right now, perhaps such a realisation would make her heart jump or some concern to course through her.

But she didn't have organs right now. 

Just pure consciousness.

... It was fine for Lily and Lily alone to know about her vulnerable moment's though, right? That was what relationships were built on, the two of them had grown closer ever since that night in Lily's room, hell, Taylor had even managed to work past her own, seemingly repressed, feelings. 

At least, she thought she had?

In the last few days she'd taken the time to look, to really look at the people around her in an attempt to better understand the conflicting feelings filling her head. 

The boys and girls in her class. 

The Wards at her work.

Various celebrities she saw in papers or online.

The boys didn't evoke feelings in her beyond vague curiosity, or a swift, often simple assessment. But she wasn't so blind as to deny that when she looked to the same gender of all those groups, her attention was so much sharper. 

Critical. 

Analysing.

Appreciative.

Yeah, it certainly seemed that she was gay.

It sounded so simple and obvious to put it like that, because of course she was; she had a crush on her friend, her female friend. 

...It was just that Taylor hadn't realised how gay she was, if that made sense? Putting it like that almost gave it a comical edge, as if gayness was some sort of sliding scale. 

But somehow, she'd missed it for so long, she'd blunted and dulled the facets of who and what she was simply to try to avoid notice. The people who had made it their daily entertainment to ruin her shine had driven her to diminish and repress what she was. 

It was amazing how much you could lie to yourself or not notice things when your every thought was tinged with paranoia and suspicion.

... All these things, mused on while suspended upside down a thousand metres above some field in Kansas, didn't really do much to help her decide on what to actually do with this information, though. 

'Confess your feelings, 'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.'

'Don't confess and pine away forever without the fear of being hurt again, these awakening feelings may just be a short-lived realisation.'

The fear of rejection was somehow more terrifying than the idea of fighting a villain. Glint could deal with a villain with a punch or enough firepower to level a building, but she couldn't handle her own feelings in such a way.

And Lily wasn't in a good place right now.

The other girl didn't need the awkwardness of turning Taylor down at this point, but a part of her so desperately just wanted to have an answer to the question.

The fact that she could pine away even as just a consciousness suspended in light without physical responses said enough about her feelings in its own way, didn't it?

A member of the Wards had defected. 

Standstill was her name, although she might have changed it by now. And she hadn't just gone rogue either, instead she had left for a group called the Adepts, a group styling themselves as magic users mostly considered to be low-risk. 

Well, low-risk when compared to groups like the Teeth.

Taylor had to wonder, in an academic sense, why would Standstill bother to leave?

More autonomy with fewer expectations? Taylor could understand that, but then again... she highly doubted that Standstill had even a fraction of the power that she did.

Maybe for better pay? The fact that Wards couldn't access the money that they could be called on to risk their safety for was a kick in the teeth. If Standstill had been desperate for cash, then defecting to join a group who could pay better would make sense...

... Love?

Maybe Standstill had a boyfriend or girlfriend in whoever it was she was joining. 

It seemed a bit foolish, but then again, it wasn't as if she'd tried to learn anything about the girl before she left. In truth, Taylor hadn't even realised that she existed until now. 

Which probably said a lot about her headspace more than anything else. 

“Glint?”

“Hm?” she glanced at Sublimate beside her. 

The other Lancer, the youngest in the team at just eight or so, was looking at her with a frown even as he fiddled with a piece of wood in his lap. 

The boy liked those little wooden mechanical devices that you assembled yourself, the ones where you push pieces out of a frame. Last week he'd finished assembling a small wooden carriage clock, and right now, he was fiddling with his next kit, a scale replica of the Empire State Building. Taylor had once heard Jouster mentioning buying a few for him after Sublimate first got out of hospital.

Around them, the Wards common room was quieter than usual, everyone either keeping quiet or speaking in low murmurs. Sublimate wasn't even a teenager yet, but had a few telltale marks of having been ill for quite a long period of time in his life. 

“What do you think about Standstill?”

To that, she gave a shrug.

“She's made a choice. I don't know why, but I'll deal with her if I need to when the circumstance arises.”

“That's...” he paused, evidently trying to think of how to phrase something or struggling for the word. “... Cold?”

Cold? Well, it was not the worst word for it. 

“I suppose it is,” she shrugged. “I didn't really know Standstill, I just saw her occasionally from across the room, so I guess I didn't really get close to her. Now she's on the other side, just got to deal with it.”

“... You don't seem to like anybody here but Fléchette.”

'Perceptive little shit.'

Even if he didn't know the degree that Taylor liked Lily, the fact that they spent enough time together to have been noticed by an easily distracted child who liked to build models said enough. Well, she supposed that others had taken notice as well, hadn't they? Jouster occasionally sent them glances, and Stallion would occasionally step over to discuss book club stuff, departing when he was done, as if sensing her desire to be alone with her friend. 

“Fléchette is a friend,” she said, couching her words. “It's not that I don't like people, it's just... I don't make friends quickly. I don't mind the rest of you guys.”

She was perfectly content to know them as co-workers. Hell, she was coming to enjoy the book club with Jouster, Stallion, and Off-Kilter, but the difference between coworker and acquaintance, and acquaintance to friend, was one that Taylor wasn't willing to let others cross easily. 

The fact that Lily had managed to do so was... well. 

Maybe she'd been subconsciously biased from the start? But she was already struggling enough to parse through her emotions when it came to that without adding in such questions...

“I'd rather everyone stay together, she was always nice to me...” Sublimate frowned down at the small panel he'd just pushed out, clumsily yet slowly turning it over in his hands and looking for rough edges and burrs. 

“You can't stop people trying to leave your life if they really want to, I'm afraid.”

She knew that well enough.  

“That's really grown up...” 

It was hard to know whether that was a compliment or criticism from the youth.

“But I hate that sort of thinking, that everyone's just gonna leave eventually,” Sublimate added, voice sullen. 

... Come to think about it, the room next to Lily's here at Headquarters was Sublimates, a permanent resident alongside Yggdrasil and Lily.

Was Sublimate an orphan and quite literal ward of the state? Or perhaps his parents abandoned him when he got sick and the bills mounted. That would probably be something worthy of triggering with powers, rather ironic that he had a power that let him summon things to increase his mobility if the people he wanted to catch up to had deliberately left him behind...

Then again, she was the fastest thing on the Earth yet couldn't move quick enough to escape her thoughts, so what did she know?

Either way.

She remained silent 

“... You're not going to say; 'they have to eventually'?” Sublimate probed, glancing back at up at her from his wooden piece. 

“No.”

“Why not? Everyone else does.”

She shrugged. 

“People move on, you can still try to keep contact with them and do all you can to keep them close,” she said. 

She left out the fact that sometimes, you really would never see them again, like her mother.

Or that, sometimes, they would go out of their way to stay in your life and make it as unpleasant as possible, like Emma. 

Or they would pull away, only to eventually come back, different, but trying, like her father. 

Sublimate was silent in response to that, considering her words, and in that time, a new group entered the room. 

The Archer team members who were present today, among them Lily. 

The other girl was beside Shelter and talking quite animatedly with the other girl, a laugh was being shared between them at some comment Taylor hadn't heard.

Just the sight made something unpleasant twinge in her stomach, an ugly spark of jealousy at seeing Lily spend time with others. Maybe it wasn't just Lily spending time with others, it was the way the other girl could smile and laugh with others who were not her. It was other people saying something that could make her friend happy, despite their ignorance of what their fellow Archer was going through. 

But it was Taylor who did, who had held her as she cried and who she turned to when she needed a distraction, so surely that meant that she was a better, more precious friend compared to the others?

It was a shallow, unpleasant thought, and a part of her took a moment to remember a few fundamental things about this friendship of theirs. 

They were colleagues in the Wards, and on different teams, so of course Lily would spend time with others.

Also, Lily, unlike her, had more than just one friend her own age, and those friends were prettier than Taylor.

Finally... they'd only actually known each other for a few months, nowhere near enough to warrant and deserve this level of attachment, right?

What a sour, horrible sort of feeling this was, grasping, zealous and consuming in nature. She'd forgotten what it was like to be so hopeful for another's notice and attention, to feel that hyper-awareness that came with interest in another human being beyond the friendly.

But still... if Lily were to do what Standstill had done, and leave the Wards... would Taylor follow her and leave as well, just for a hope of something more?

It was utterly stupid to consider, but the fact that a part of her was considering giving a 'yes' to that really showed just how deep in this crush she was. 

'Honestly, the first person to show you some degree of kindness, and you melt like a stick of butter in the sun' she reflected sourly. 

“Hey, Glint, want some?”

She glanced behind her. 

Lily had walked up behind the sofa, and was offering her part of a cookie. It looked as though it were still warm, the chocolate chips were still in that semi-molten state.

Her friend was smiling encouragingly down at her, standing close enough that normally Taylor would lean away. 

But she didn't, and instead took the offered piece of cookie.

“... Thanks, Fléchette,” she said, glad that the other girl wasn't telepathic and couldn't read her thoughts, and took a bite. 

It was very sweet, but gooey and warm.

“Hey, why does Glint get a bite, but I don't!” hollered a member of the Archers nearby with mock indignation. 

“Because she's a sweetheart, and you're not.”

“Hey, I'm a sweetheart, I'll have you know!”

“... Samuel, you're basically a shaved bear we managed to teach to use a slingshot.”

Taylor was rather glad for the incredulous and over the top responses of her fellow Wards, which served to make sure that nobody looked closer at her. She wasn't sure whether her visor was covering enough of her face to disguise the heat in her cheeks.

Goddammit, Lily, stop saying things that only made her crush feel more and more real...

Chapter Text

Pit-pat pit-pat pit-pat---

Rather than their usual sofa in the Wards common room, Taylor and Lily were spending their evening on the one overlooking the street from the fourth-story window. A few weeks ago, they had sat together during a thunderstorm here, and Lily had managed to cajole Taylor into joining her in the gym.

How things had changed...

Well, it was the same sort of weather, because it seemed that New York liked its rainstorms. 

But now, instead of sitting at opposite ends of the sofa, Lily was sat right beside her, legs out and her upper back resting against Taylor's side, as usual. 

Were it anyone else, Taylor would have pushed her away, but when it was Lily... well, it was nice that the other girl was so comfortable sitting so close. Honestly, perhaps it was almost a little too close for what was normal between friends... but it was Lily initiating, so it wasn't like she was being too clingy, right?

It wasn't like she minded... in this position she could faintly smell Lily's perfume, which she had suddenly started wearing recently. And she could watch the way the other Wards long eyelashes lazily blinked open and closed as she focused on her mother's copy of Dracula.

“That meeting you had earlier was really long.”

Lily presented it as a statement and a question at the same time.

It certainly had been... three hours of sitting in a room barely allowed to actually say anything, but needing to be there in case she could provide some sort of advice about her power and its application. 

“Yeah... They were discussing having me search for Standstill, you know, speed of light stuff and not being noticed.”

“They're really going that far, huh? Well, I guess she did just up and leave, and she knows a lot of us...”

The other Ward was doing that thing where she pretended to read, but clearly was more focused on Taylor than the words on the page before her. 

"Yeah... she's considered too risky with what she knows."

There was also the fact that Standstill could instantly, and selectively, make people pass out, at the cost of also having the same effect on her. 

It didn't matter whether you were an old lady with poor health or somebody like Legend, she could just do it.

It seemed rather suicidal as an ability, unless you had a good team with you, in which case it was basically a perfect flashbang that took out opponents and left your teammates to mop up what was left. It was a shame that the girl had left the Wards, she'd had a good record for helping to bring people in without any losses or damage. 

“... I don't like the idea of you being put at risk like that, isn't there somebody in the Protectorate who can do it? Hell, just find the place and one good knock-out gas grenade could do it... so long as they know where she is, they could just grab her.”

“I think they kind of want to use it as a test, after the Solitaire thing.”

Taylor probably wasn't supposed to discuss this sort of thing with Lily... but then again, didn't she have the right to share things with others, especially people she cared about? It wasn't like Lily would snitch, not like Emma... right?

“Yeah... still. I'd rather somebody else be at risk, preferably somebody who's actually in the Protectorate,” Lily replied, ignorant of Taylor's moment of ugly doubt.

Taylor glanced away to refocus on the outside.

“I mean, don't you think I can handle it?” 

Her response was, perhaps, just a little prickly. She already had plenty of adults and people in the PRT doubting her, who read their little reports and thought they understood her powers better than her. 

“I know you can.”

Lily was smiling again, even if her eyes still weren't reading the page. 

The vote of confidence from the girl felt far more important than one from any of the PRT bigwigs who had grilled her earlier in the day about her abilities. Honestly, she wished that Director Wilkins could have mustered even a fraction of the confidence her only friend her age could in her. 

But then again, that was one of the wonderful things about Lily, wasn't it? The fact the girl could be honest with Taylor, even if she wore a smiling, optimistic mask around others... it was her and her alone who got to see behind that. 

“Thanks, Lily.”

“You're welcome,” the other girl bumped her head against Taylor's shoulder, like an affectionate cat.

She kinda wanted to reach out and stroke her hair...

But that was just the confusing nascent lesbianism talking. 

Taylor resisted the urge, and went back to watching the raindrops slide down the window. 

Once more, they lapsed into their comfortable, companionable silence. 

Compared to the awkward silences she endured with others, or the silent picture in motion that was her power, this quiet, gentle peace with Lily felt so lovely, she wished moments like this could last forever...

However, it did not last long before Lily spoke up again.

“Hmm... you know, I still think you should let me take you out to that boutique sometime, you'd kill in those jeans.”

“I'm not sure I would really suit it...” she deflected.

“You have nice legs.”

The idea that Lily thought that any part of her was in some way nice was enough to make her feel both overjoyed and nervous in equal measure. It made a part of her want to squeal in joy like a kid, and another wonder whether it was just some sort of backhanded compliment.

“Well, you're very pretty as well, so they'd probably suit you better.”

It was spur of the moment, more an attempt to deflect away from Lily's continued attempts to get her to join her on a shopping trip than anything else. 

“Oooh, now I get to add pretty to the list, last time we sat on this sofa you said I was fit. Best compliments I've had from a girl in ages.” 

“I mean, it would mean more if it was from somebody who actually knew much about fashion, or from some boy you liked.”

Lily took a long moment to turn over the page of her book, frowning a little, and then she glanced up at Taylor. 

Taylor's heart did some weird somersault at the way Lily slowly blinked those long-lashed eyes at her, the light catching them so nicely, gods, every time she looked she found new and more lovely shades inside them...

“Eh, the opinions of boys don't really mean much to me,” Lily gave a casual shrug. 

A half-dozen suggestions and interpretations came to Taylor's mind to explain the comment. Perhaps Lily wasn't looking to date right now, or she was focusing more on her Wards career, or she had her own style and didn't really care about what was conventionally attractive... Hell, she may even not be interested in anyone of any gender.

“Oh, um, fair.”

But...

Lily didn't say that she didn't like the opinions of girls, only boys, and her over-analytical mind set upon that wording. Was it deliberate, was it some sort of message or hint? Or was it just casual delivery, and not worthy of deeper thought?

Did...

Did Taylor dare to ask?

Did she venture with the question?

In the end, she didn't... even if just the slightest chance that Lily may also be into girls was enough to make her heart try out for Olympic gymnastics in her chest.

Lily watched her for a long moment more as Taylor fixedly returned her attention out of the window, and then she returned to her book with a soft hum. Gods, the girl was so unaware of the maelstrom of emotions that she'd created, tearing her way through Taylor's heart like a beautiful monster and leaving her all confused, yet leaving Taylor wanting more...

Taylor closed her eyes behind her visor and tried not to focus on her racing heart. 

So stupid... stupid stupid stupid.

She needed to talk to somebody, somebody who knew what she was going through because this anxiety was utterly consuming her. 

She'd put it off for more than long enough.

Taylor had been staring at a door for the last five minutes.

The door was certainly a rather handsome specimen, but all in all, it did not deserve this degree of staring, but she'd been struggling to work up the courage to actually reach up and press the doorbell. 

Sure, it wasn't like she was a stranger to her uncle's apartment; she came here once a week to have dinner with Keith and his family, after all

The problem was, she wasn't here for dinner today. 

Jabbing her hand out, she finally managed to press the button, and managed to spook herself with how loud it was.

Man... talk about being nervy.

This was probably a terrible idea, she could just fly away, Arthur would most likely open the door and wonder who pressed the button and then left, maybe she would get their neighbours in trouble if she did that? But no, she needed to actually try to talk this stuff through with people, and much as she'd been putting it off she needed to do this.

Before she could lose her nerve and fly away, the door opened.

“Oh? Is it Friday already?” Arthur asked, before glancing over to the calendar beside the door, one of those artsy ones made up of wood blocks.

“No, no, I kinda just wanted to ask you something, Arthur? Like, if it's not too much trouble.”

She tried to make it sound casual enough.

Arthur raised his brows, but after a moment, he smiled and opened the door further. 

“Come in, do you want anything to drink? Oh, and I'm afraid Keith Jr. is having a quick nap so he won't be able to trouble you or demand any treats,” he said, ushering her inside as if she were his niece, and not just an in-law. She removed her shoes as normal, setting them down in their normal place. 

“Um, tea, please... Is he still banned from sweets after the carpet incident?”

Arthur gave her a wry look. 

“Well, yes and no.”

“... Was it you or Keith who broke first?”

“Him, he spoils him. Honestly, the fact he can be in charge of all you Wards but can't even discipline his own son makes me laugh sometimes!” Arthur chuckled there, reaching up to adjust his glasses as he led Taylor through to the sitting room. 

She could see the patch of carpet that, by the looks of it, had been replaced, as it was a different shade from the rest. That or it had been cleaned and scrubbed within an inch of its life. 

“Well, he always loved kids, I remember he used to come over and spend ages playing with me,” she said, thinking back. Honestly, those were sweet times, when her mother, father, and uncle would dote on her for hours... perhaps she had been a little spoiled.

“I remember the first time I got to meet your parents Keith promptly spent the first hour bouncing you on his knee, and I was wondering whether he had a secret love child, but then again, I was a lot more... hmm, suspicious at the time,” he said. 

She pulled a face, and evidently, it was one he could read into, as he hastened to add;

“I'd just come out of a bad relationship, my previous partner turned out to be a little more straight than he said; turned out he'd gotten a college roommate of mine pregnant, and he left me for her. So I was just a little more paranoid than poor Keith deserved.”

“Huh... and here I thought it was some fairy tale sweeping off your feet sort of thing.”

“Is that how it was sold to you? Taylor, honey, relationships are never quite that easy, I had a good amount of baggage coming into the relationship.”

Yes, she was rather learning such things herself, wasn't she?

“Ah, but I doubt you're here just to listen to my old romantic woes,” Arthur chuckled. 

Silence filled the air for a long moment, she should have probably laughed it off, but she wasn't feeling it. 

And anyway...

“Aha...” the sound escaped her mouth before she could stop it, and suddenly the painting on the wall to the side of Arthur's head was a lot more interesting than it had been a few moments ago. 

But she could see from the periphery of her vision the way her uncle's husband raised his brows for a moment.

“Ah, I see... well, if you've come over for some advice on anything, you know that I'm more than happy to listen... I'm sure Keith would be as well, but I appreciate that could be a different sort of awkward?”

The man crossed one leg over the other and smiled pleasantly at her, as if they were discussing something as simple as a piece of school work.

“Yeah... I... um, I was kinda...”

“Worried to discuss it with somebody who's family?”

She nodded, feeling as if some manner of great weight was pressing down on her from above, and the need to try to escape this situation. But some combination of stubbornness and a desire to know, to just... tell somebody and work through her thinking kept her rooted to the comfortable sofa.

“I get that, when I finally opened up about it, it was to a best friend and a random drunk guy at a club... strange conversation, the shots helped me finally blurt it out, but actually doing so was really helpful...”

... So, when did she start feeling better about herself and this situation then? Like, it was nice to have kind of hinted and admitted such to somebody---

Actually, no, it was terrifying!

Arthur was smiling at her all nicely, his tone was soft, and he was clearly trying to cheer her up with the story, but---

“So, I'm guessing that you've been having thoughts for somebody?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Another girl?”

Obviously.

No, don't be mean... he was just trying to coax her along, like drawing a shy puppy or kitten out of whatever hole it had hidden in with food. 

“Yeah...”

“Well, I can't empathise in quite the same way of course; I'm not a woman last time I checked,” he said, chuckling. “Well, first things first I'm going to ask, because it's something I struggled with... Do you feel like it's wrong? Like, are you questioning whether it's right?”

There was a weight to the word there, as if attempting to attach some great deeper meaning, the influence of centuries of stigma and judgement.

“Kinda... but also no...” 

Arthur gestured with a hand, as if delegating the floor for her to speak. 

“I just... it's not that it feels wrong, I just don't know what the hell I'm doing or if it's anything more than a crush, and I don't want to mess anything up because things are tough for her right now but at the same time I really want to say something but what if it's a short-lived thing and it's just because I have no friends and I'm just confused and it's all messed up in my head and I'm just... I don't know!”

In lieu of clearly communicating anything with any degree of structure, Taylor frustratedly flailed her hands.

Arthur nodded his head, evidently possessing some form of supernatural empathy able to read into vague gestures.

“Okay, Taylor, take a breath... it's okay, I fully get it. I had similar thoughts when I was your age.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely... now, how about I get around to making that tea, and we talk in the kitchen? Maybe you can help me make some dough for the pizza tonight and we'll talk more, having something to focus on always helps me talk about heavy things.”

She paused, swallowed thickly and nodded. 

Of course Arthur would get it, even if things were a little different. 

Taylor followed him into the fancy kitchen and began helping to make dinner for the man and his family, working over a piece of dough. She wasn't very good at it, but as Arthur had said, it was good to have something tactile to focus on as they talked.

And they talked a lot. 

Advice.

Stories. 

Consolations and attempts to explain feelings. 

The agonising minutes stretched into half an hour, and it wasn't until she was helping to spread the tomato paste that she realised that her shoulders had relaxed for the first time. 

It was... it helped, just getting it off her chest. 

Somebody else in the world knew, and Arthur wasn't judging her for it (well, it would be a bit hypocritical if he did) and it was just... better. 

It wasn't as if she'd been worried about being rejected by family members when it came to something like this; she'd been raised in a house that accepted and loved her uncle for who he was, her parents had always said that they'd love her no matter who she loved---

“Have you talked to your dad about things?” Arthur asked, adding sliced mushrooms.

“No... um, I kind of wanted to speak with you guys first. For obvious reasons.”

A nod. 

“Well, if today has helped, and I hope it has, I think you should speak with him next. All well and good to talk to me, and I don't doubt that Keith'll support you as well, but I think you'll settle yourself by speaking to him as well.”

“Yeah...”

A hand found her shoulder. 

“Do you want to stay and talk to Keith as well?”

“... I think I'm all talked out for today.”

“Understandable... well, Keith's going to be back from the office soon, he never leaves before five,” Arthur said, glancing at the clock. “So if you want to head off now, I won't mention... and if you want to talk about anything, you know where I am.”

“... Thanks, Arthur.”

She meant it, she really did. 

It'd been awkward, but the relief from just being able to get it all off her chest was just... yeah. 

Taylor departed and appeared in her bedroom in Brockton Bay, and suddenly felt as if she'd both run a marathon and eaten a whole bowl of sugar at the same time. 

She flopped out on her bed, staring at the ceiling.

A part of her, a small, fragile little part, hoped that maybe, if she could gather the courage to ask, Lily would respond just as well, if not better, to the same conversation she'd just had with Arthur.

Chapter Text

Lily had a date.

Well, that was an exaggeration; it wasn't a date, it was just a trip out with Taylor after another frustrating, disappointing morning at the courthouse. 

She really needed to stop thinking of these little outings as dates, but it was kind of hard not to, you know? 

Taylor was the girl she liked, and sure they were doing couple-y things together like going out shopping, going for walks in the park... but it wasn't a date. 

“I still think you should have gotten the jeans,” Lily repeated for the fifth time in the last hour. 

“They were too tight!” 

Lily sighed with an unnecessary degree of melodrama, using it as an opportunity to lean closer to her crush.

“That's the point, they're skinny jeans! They looked great on you!” And they had, because goddamn. “You've got legs like the Empire State Building!”

Taylor looked at her for a long moment, face almost painfully blank.

“Wide at the base and frequently struck by lightning?”

Oh, for God's sake either this girl was as dense as a platinum cube or she really, really couldn't take a compliment about herself!

“No! Tall and long, goddamn great! I wish I had legs like you! I'm jealous, I want long sexy legs as well---hey! Come back here!”

Taylor was suddenly walking much quicker, and Lily had to almost break into a jog to keep up with her friend's sudden urge to power walk and leave Lily behind. Honestly, it was just a little compliment!

... Was Taylor blushing?

Well, now she wanted to see her friend's expression!

And just like that, another piece of evidence in her already vast mental case file indicating that Taylor was as gay as Lily and harboured feelings for her. 

The girl could be avoidant regarding certain things, but Lily had been gay more than long enough to recognise a lot of the small signs. The way Taylor would look at her when she thought Lily wouldn't notice, the pauses, the faint blushes.

Just the other day she'd called Taylor a sweetheart as she offered the other girl part of that cookie, and she'd seen those reddened cheeks under her visor!

And there was the time in the garage, where she'd tried and failed to say something more concrete about her feelings, only to falter, and Taylor had given that lovely reassurance to be there for her. Lily had been walking on clouds for hours after that and grinning like a loon at the expression she'd made when Lily had said that it was one of the things she loved about Taylor. 

The shock, the hopeful surprise that had been there for just a second or two before Taylor had managed to disguise it. 

That split second of expression had done more to confirm things for Lily than anything else. 

Taylor could hide her thoughts and feelings well, but those little moments when the mask slipped, her heart was worn on her sleeve.

But she really didn't want to be wrong because that'd been how she'd lost people in the past, after all, people she'd thought she could trust.

When she managed to catch up with Taylor and they'd laughed the interaction off, they stopped for ice cream, despite it being early spring. 

Lily watched as Taylor looked over the vast selection available just for a moment before placing her order. Lily took much longer, agonising over it until she decided on coffee. 

“Coffee ice cream?” Taylor asked, looking at Lily's tower of three scoops.

“Um-hm!” she replied, licking the cold treat. 

“Is it different when it's ice cream? I normally like tea better.”

“Yeah, I've noticed, you never go for the coffee whenever it's around at work... what's your favourite?”

That spawned an entire conversation as they enjoyed their treat. 

Taylor was one of those superhuman beings that could bite into ice cream without getting a toothache, it seemed. 

Lily, with her more delicate constitution, had to make do with her tongue instead. 

At one point, she kept eye contact with Taylor as she did so, and was pleasantly rewarded when the other girl blinked, and suddenly averted her gaze. There was an awkward chuckle and a dusting of pink on the girl's pale cheeks that might not have been noticed were Lily not actively looking for these responses at this point. 

It was kinda fun to tease her friend... 

But there was no need to take it too far. 

She just hoped that the idea stayed in her head. 

She knew Taylor at this point to recognise that the cool, controlled exterior wasn't so perfect, that just like Lily, there was a certain degree of hiding things away going on. 

Well, that was the case with all Parahumans, but Taylor just... needed time to work through her own thoughts, that much was obvious. It took them weeks to go from sitting in silence reading together to gym buddies, and from there to... whatever this was. 

Friends?

Best friends?

'Bleh,' as Taylor had once said.

“I have a conversation with my dad I need to have later...” Taylor murmured into her ice cream, looking down. “I'm not looking forward to it, to be honest.”

“Oh?”

“Um-hm.”

Taylor wasn't saying anything more on what it was about, which immediately made Lily want to know what it was that she needed to discuss.

Maybe someday, she'd get to know everything that was in there, if she could just keep up this closeness.

“Well, I hope it all goes okay,” Lily said. “Your dad sounds nice.”

“Oh... actually, sorry, I shouldn't, you know... bring that sort of thing up while---”

“It's cool. Just because my dad's the way he is doesn't mean that I'm unhappy you have yours.”

The stage of her life where it hurt to see other kids in happy families had passed so long ago that she barely remembered that time, to be honest. It had been swiftly replaced with the 'I wish I could be adopted into a nice family' stage of things. 

And then that too passed after one too many stuttered, failed attempts, hopes and dreams crushed. She didn't have any hope of some perfect foster situation to suddenly work itself out now, and frankly, she wasn't sure she wanted one to. 

And now... now she was in the early independence 'finding somebody' phase of her life, it seemed.

She'd never been able to truly find a home in which she felt welcome, but she could try to make her own little home in the world, right? And if that home was with somebody like Taylor.

“Yeah... well, my dad's had a rough time when my mum died.” 

Lily nodded, leaning forward just a little to give her full attention to Taylor. 

Whenever Taylor mentioned her mother, it was always from the heart, and... vulnerable? Yeah, that might be the word. The girl had looked hesitant to give over the annotated copy of Dracula that Lily was currently devouring, as if she was second-guessing herself the entire time. 

“I kinda think she was his whole world, you know? He kinda fell apart, and then we didn't talk to each other as much and things got worse... got into a real funk for a bit...” 

Taylor paused to take another bite of ice cream. 

Neglect?

It was a story as old as time, one she'd seen more than enough times across various homes. A parent dies, and the other falls apart and can't keep things going, can't be strong for the child left behind, or sometimes too self-absorbed in their own misery. 

“But now?” Lily ventured.

“He's better; my uncle gave him a good talking to, and the stuff that happened to me to do with work kind of snapped him out of things, you know?”

She hummed, and returned to her rapidly melting ice cream. 

It made sense.

Some people just couldn't exist without their other half in their life, or the person they relied on the most. The longer their friendship went on, the more Lily felt attached to Taylor in a way that some people would probably describe as a 'bit too much', but that was just her nature. She wasn't a person who could exist in isolation from others. She needed other people to keep the dark thoughts away and to silently provide reassurance that no, she wasn't still that little girl without a place in the world.

The notion of going through this business with her parents and the courts without these little dates with Taylor, or without her there to speak and spend time with...

It was horrible to imagine, it made her chest ache. 

“Hey, Lily?”

“Huh?”

“You're spacing out, that's normally my thing to do.”

The joke was small, but it still gave her a chuckle even as she rushed to think of what to say. 

“Yeah, but sometimes I can do it too! Anyway, what's up?”

“Well... How was your thing today? Or, um, don't you want to discuss it?”

'I don't want to.'

'Can't we focus on this?'

'Let's not talk about this, I love you, our time is special, and I want it to only be full of happy things.'

“I... it's okay, just slow-going,” she said after a moment. “The lawyers say it's normal for this to happen, that we can basically stall them out and try to make them run out of money to drop it, but I kind of just want it done, you know? It's going nowhere fast and because of small mistakes here and there things keep getting pushed back until the right paperwork or investigations can be done... they want to take a look around my room sometime soon to judge whether it's 'appropriate housing' or something like that.”

The last part she grumbled, hand clenching. 

Not like they really cared where she'd been living this entire time; her room at the PRT Headquarters was more of a home than any house she'd lived in for the last few years.

“... Need any help? Like, clearing stuff up or hiding things away before they visit?”

The notion of asking Taylor to help Lily hide away her collection of lesbian erotica was more than she could endure being taken by surprise with. 

She began choking on air and her last lick of ice cream, a choking fit that didn't pass until Taylor passed her a glass of water. 

God, what a sweet dork...

The subway shifted, the air was hot, stuffy. 

Lily stood with her back to a window, Taylor standing right beside her.

After a full day, they were returning to headquarters. 

Lily scanned the carriage, just as she had done repeatedly for the last few minutes. 

She wasn't very fond of these places... actually, it would be more correct to say that she'd come to hate trains and especially subways with a passion. Frankly, she'd much rather have taken a taxi, even if it would be far more expensive.

But she didn't want to look like a baby in front of Taylor. 

The other girl had already seen her cry her eyes out, there was no need to show her that she'd developed an aversion to a form of transport that tens of millions used every day as well. Just because it happened once didn't mean that it would again... if only because her sister was dead now.

More people loaded on and space grew increasingly tight. 

Glancing up, she could see the way Taylor shifted uncomfortably at the density of people, her nervousness not born from the same source as Lily's, but instead just from her aversion to crowds. 

And then---

The carriage lurched with a jolt as it departed the station. 

Lily jolted; without anything to hold on to and with how stiff she'd been, she almost fell---

Taylor's hand grabbed her, stopping her from falling into somebody. The taller girl had reached out and wrapped an arm around her waist, as if she were a heroine in a Victorian novel swooning into the arms of a conveniently placed eligible bachelor.

“It's okay...” Taylor said, quietly, glancing around in a manner perhaps just a little self-conscious. “No railing left, so... you can hold on to me?”

What a sweet, adorable goober. 

“Okay.”

Honestly, Lily, get yourself together, girl!

It was just a journey on a subway. 

She moved a little closer, Taylor's arm around her waist kept its hold and after a moment, she put an arm around Taylor's waist in return. 

Man, she was so slim.

Together, they swayed this way and that.

In moments, they both silently found a weird sort of synchronicity. She always felt as if she was in sync whenever she was with Taylor. Their conversations, their thoughts on things, and now their bodies as well, how romantic, a part of her wanted to think something sappy like 'it's a sign we're meant to be together.'

But she pushed down that notion.

She could lead the horse to water, but not make it drink.

A part of her wanted to stop reading into other things, another part couldn't stop taking notice of every small thing to do with Taylor. Like how nice she smelled, or how quick her pulse was beneath her fingers even as she continued to hold Lily in place in lieu of a rail.

But it distracted her from thoughts of her Trigger Event. 

The next stop, more people boarded and barely any got off.

Crushed closer and closer together, the two of them shuffled further into the nook of the carriage, Lily in the corner and Taylor standing as if to shield her. 

They were so close together that Lily was practically leaning against Taylor now, eyes just inches away from the other girl's face, well, from her nose. 

This was a bad idea, all of it, the world had set up a convoluted series of trials for her to face today and this was one of them. 

She looked up and into Taylor's eyes, which were looking down at her with an expression hard to read, that piercing look that was searching for something in her face. 

Lily licked her lips awkwardly. 

Were it not for all the people around them, then this moment would almost be romantic, perfect for her to try and confirm what she felt so, so sure was the truth. It would be so easy to cross that distance between the two of them and press her lips against---

“You don't like the subway?”

Stop it with the lesbian fantasies in the middle of your not-date, Lily!

“... How'd you guess?” Lily asked, glad that Taylor must have been gauging her discomfort rather than anything deeper.

“I can feel how tense you are.”

Oh, through the arm holding her. Right.

“No, it's just...” 'my trigger event'.

She couldn't finish the sentence, not with so many people around, not in this environment.

“It's okay, Lily.”

The arm still around her gave her a squeeze, Taylor's murmured assurance like warm honey in her ears against the background of the rumbling of the subway and everyone else inside it. 

The subway continued on, and Lily didn't try to say anything more, not trusting her traitorous tongue and instead just enjoying the sensation of Taylor holding her in place in the stuffy, claustrophobic carriage.

When they got to the right stop, Taylor led the way out, creating a path. Taylor's arm had released Lily and instead her crush had grabbed her hand and began leading the way out. 

She liked the feeling of Taylor holding it and leading the way, of the fact Taylor was okay to push forwards despite how much she disliked crowds just to help Lily get out of an environment she hated. Honestly, for all her teasing and subtle hints today, when push came to shove it was Taylor who took the initiative... it wasn't fair, she was supposed to be the confident one between them right now.

Her hand involuntarily clenched around Taylor's. Her crush looked back and gave a smile back at her, then focused on continuing to make headway for them both. 

Distracted by her thoughts, Lily bumped into a stranger. She gave a mumbled apology to the person, a sharply dressed girl around their age with some East Asian descent. She seemed familiar, but she couldn't recall where...

But beyond the apology she didn't pay any greater heed to the stranger she'd bumped into, instead all her attention was on Taylor as something inside her settled. 

If Taylor didn't say anything in the next few days... no, the next week, then she'd do it, she'd finally just ask Taylor, as awkward as that conversation would be. 

Fuck her parents and all the chaos and drama going on in her life, she just wanted to go on the hunch she felt so sure of and and try to make this thing they had real.

Chapter Text

Taylor chewed her food mechanically.

Her father had made a pasta dish her mother loved, and while it was tasty, she was barely registering the flavour.

Instead, her mind was full of other things: especially the conversation with Arthur just the other night and her trip out with Lily earlier.

Man, that had been... something.

She'd grown avoidant to the idea of people having anything good to think about her with time, but c'mon, those skinny jeans and having Lily look her up and down with that damn approving expression! Or that thing Lily was doing to that poor ice cream!

This was cruel and unusual torture, universe!

How could she possibly put herself together when so many of the things Lily had been doing recently had only driven her further and further from the safe delusions she had built up around herself!

... Unless Lily was doing it on purpose, of course. After all, she'd said she liked sapphic romance much more than straight. She was polite but mostly disregarded male teammates in favour of spending time with female ones. And in her own words, 'the opinions of boys don't really mean much to me.'

When Lily had been looking up at her on the subway, their faces only a few inches apart, it was like time had stopped without her even using her power. She'd seen the way Lily's lips had slightly parted, the way her pupils had dilated as they stared at one another.

Instead, she'd asked a question about Lily's obvious discomfort.

It had been a way to break the tension and distract from the fact her heart had been racing and every instinct in her head had been screaming 'kiss her you fool!'

"---aylor?"

"Hm? Oh, sorry dad, was just... thinking about something," she said, glancing up from her food at her father.

"What are you thinking? Looked pretty deep there," he asked, brows raised even as he put another, albeit small, portion of food on his plate.

... Did she just finally say it?

She glanced away for a moment, took a breath.

Another one.

Waited a moment and bit her lip.

The longer she stalled, the worse it would look. She just needed to say it and get it over and done with and deal with the consequences.

"Dad," she began, paused, and then said, in a rush. "Ithinkimgay!"

Her father blinked for a moment, set down his cutlery.

"I know."

...

...

...

"Huh?"

The sound escaped her lips before she could stop it. She blinked as her heart sank in her chest to new depths previously unrecorded.

Her father looked utterly unsurprised by her statement, actually, he simply gave a nod as if they were discussing some known fact between them, and not the matter that had been eating away at her for ages now.

"Taylor, honey, I've known you were gay for ages."

Her mouth opened, a faint sound like her soul escaping her body escaped it.

"What, but, how!?"

To that, she was given a long, somewhat wry look, and then her father gave one of those belly chuckles that he only did when he knew something she didn't, or something was really obvious.

It echoed around the small kitchen for a moment, before he settled and answered:

"Taylor, friends don't bundle up with their friends so close that they look like pigs-in-blankets, but every time Emma came over further into your teens you would insist on doing so, you would get all pouty if she didn't want to cuddle," her father said, raising a finger. "And any time I asked you about people in your class in the last year or two? It was like you were discussing something about as interesting as a random piece of stone but you could always comment on girls who were well dressed," he raised a second finger.

She had the most terrible feeling that he was going to list a lot more examples.

"But---"

Her protest fell on deaf ears as her father raised a third finger.

"I also used to find you reading your mother's swimsuit catalogues and then trying to hide them afterwards, not long before your mother died. You used to get so defensive and flushed when I asked if you were planning for a future holiday. Should I go on?" He raised his brows, as if to ask whether he needed to list out more examples.

He knew.

He'd known for longer than Taylor had known this about herself? And after she'd been agonising so much about it and trying to find herself and worrying about how she would explain things, and he'd known the entire time!?

Had he just been waiting for her to have this conversation with him!?!?

She entered her breaker form.

Left it.

Entered it again.

And then, left it once more, raised her hands to cover her face and made a strangled sound of sheer, unadulterated mortification.

And through it all, her father had the unmitigated audacity to just sit there smiling understandingly.

"Did you really think I wouldn't notice the small hints here and there, especially when my brother was about as straight as a swirly-straw at your age?" he asked, just a little humour to his tone.

Of course!

Of fucking course he would recognise it because of Uncle Keith!

Why the actual flying purple fuck hadn't she considered that! She'd spent so long psyching herself out about this conversation, and he'd already guessed!

"For what it's worth, your mother would have supported you as well," her father spoke up, evidently realising that she wasn't going to be saying anything for a bit. His tone was soft and fond as he went on; "we discussed it a few times, actually, when I became sure. It was one of the few times I noticed something before her, actually... and she bought a book or two to read and hopefully make this conversation as smooth as possible."

Her father had an odd smile there, melancholy but also proud.

Trust her mother to try and understand this sort of thing through books.

The idea that her mother knew but just never got to have the conversation was, well, it wasn't vindicating so much as it was sweet.

"So, who's the lucky young lady?"

Taylor peered out from between her fingers and wondered whether it was a lucky guess on his part, or if he had suspected something from earlier on.

Judging by his smile, it was the latter.

"... Lily."

"Ah, the girl from the Wards?"

"Yeah... she's, um... we read a lot, and we go to the gym, and you know... we go out into New York for walks and ice cream..."

Her father nodded, as if her stumbling statements made some sort of sense that he could understand. When did her father develop a teenage-angst-to-English translator, this wasn't fair!

"Well, don't think that just because she isn't a boy that I won't be giving her a talk, young lady! What sort of father would I be if I didn't try to intimidate my daughter's first girlfriend or boyfriend! I'll make sure to ask her, 'So, what are your intentions with my daughter?' the first time I meet her."

"Please don't," she begged, not sure if he was serious or not.

"Don't worry, Taylor, I was just joking."

Be still, her heart, because she was pretty sure that the mental image of him having that conversation with Lily had aged her about fifty years in the span of seconds!

"Have you talked to your uncle?"

"No... I wanted to talk to you first about it, um, I talked to Arthur though, he gave me some advice."

Her father nodded.

"Yeah, that's sensible, I imagine it would be a bit awkward to go to your uncle and boss to discuss things like that."

"Uh-huh..."

A silence fell.

Her father took a bite of food, perhaps just to fill the space between them as they both processed the conversation thus far. The ticking of the clock on the opposite wall sounded incredibly loud all of a sudden.

"For what it's worth and just to make sure you know, I'll support whoever you end up with, so long as they'll treat you right, Taylor, and I hope you know you can talk to me any time you need."

"Yeah... I know."

Of course he would, because he was her dad, and despite everything, he had always loved her and taken care of her as best he could.

Even if for a while his best hadn't necessarily been great.

"And if anybody gives you any trouble, just let me know, I've already done this rodeo once..." He chuckled. "When Keith came out I ended up punching out my own father when he took it badly. Although hopefully, I won't need to resort to violence for you."

Hold up a minute.

"You punched your dad?"

"Yeah. Old bastard had a lot to say when your uncle came out, this was back in the late eighties, and he was an old school sort... Keith was pretty sick back then, thought he only had a little while left and wanted to get things off his chest. My dad kicked him onto the streets and disowned him."

"What happened?" she asked, morbid curiosity driving her on.

"I broke his nose and left as well. Me and Keith lived together for a bit before he recovered and ended up moving to New York."

Man, she was learning the family deep lore now.

Although the image of her father decking somebody in the face was so incongruous with the man who wouldn't so much as raise his voice at her when she was a little girl.

It was... kind of hilarious actually, and heartwarming that he'd gone so far for Keith, it explained a lot, actually.

It made her smile more than it should.

"Thanks, dad."

She meant it, she really did.

"Any time."

The two of them lapsed into silence. Perhaps it was just a case of them both recovering from a conversation between them that perhaps had been long overdue.

They both finished their portions and cleaned up, he washed the dishes, and she dried them off, standing side by side silently processing what had just occurred.

Well, awkward, but also lighter, and kind of giddy as well, and exhausted.

Really, really exhausted.

It was bullshit that somebody who could fly around the planet in less than a second could be tired out just having a conversation with one of the people who was supposed to unconditionally love her.

She made it up to her room and all but collapsed onto her bed as waves of tension dissipated.

First Arthur, now her father.

... Now she just needed to actually try to do the same with Lily.

No, she didn't need to, she was going to.

She'd held it off for long enough and tried to parse through her thoughts and feelings, but now she needed to just come out and say it to her.

Chapter Text

A few days after her conversation with her father, Taylor had still not managed to make good on her promise to tell Lily the truth. 

It wasn't because of cowardice or anything like that!

Well, maybe a little.

But it was primarily because she just couldn't find the right opportunity. She'd been trying to find a moment to ask the question, but... well, how did you just come out and reveal that you were gay? She'd managed it with her dad in a big rush but like, they were family, he had to love her because he was her dad, but Lily was just a close friend.

A close friend she had feelings for. 

A close friend she had feelings for that a guarded part of Taylor dared to hope might have feelings for her in return. At least, hoped for based on thing's she might have just imagined...

But just coming out swinging with 'so, I'm gay' wasn't right. It would be obvious, it would be awkward and most of all, it would seem too pointed and directed...

Beside her, Lily sighed a little, eyes half lidded as she watched the movie on the small TV opposite them. 

They'd ended up in Lily's cramped PRT quarters again, wrapped up in blankets and shoulder to shoulder, so close that the other girl's warmth was gently warming her arm. After another day with only so much progress in terms of her family situation, the other girl had wanted some company and comfort. Just Taylor's though, not anyone else's. 

Because Taylor was the person to lean on and go to when Lily wasn't having a good time. It was a fact that even Taylor, as down on herself as she could be, could recognise.

There had been little wasting time tonight; an hour ago she'd received a rapid fire string of text messages of the sort Lily always sent when she was down.

Lily Hanazawa: Today went bad

Lily Hanazawa: My parents tried to corner me to 'make me see sense' and they were saying so much bullshit

Lily Hanazawa: I'm so sick of all of ths Taylor

Lily Hanazawa: Can we watch a movie again?

Lily Hanazawa: In my room again

Lily Hanazawa: I know you might be busy but whenever you're free so long as its not a problem

As if Lily had needed to ask. 

In the choice between sitting at home just doing a bit of reading or spending time with Lily, there was no real need to ask. Which perhaps went to say all that needed to be said about her feelings and how much she'd come to cherish the other girl. 

 Although tonight's choice of movie---

“I keep telling you, Josh's not right for you!” 

---Was not exactly her normal cup of tea. 

On the screen a blonde, conventionally attractive woman was talking to a friend, another rather attractive woman, as they met up for the first time in months. 

The friendliness between them was obvious, in that very cliché movie way. 

Taylor shifted a little under the tangled heap of cheap PRT-issue blankets, making herself more comfortable.

The room was dark around them, with only a small lamp and the TV screen to provide any light. It was cosy, especially with the special hot chocolate she'd made sure to bring with her earlier. Lily could provide the film and the blankets, and Taylor would provide the drinks... 

Heh, that sounded both childish and grown up at the same time. 

Maybe someday the two of them could go out to a fancy cocktail bar together, and they would lament the troubles of work and complain about overpriced, stupidly named cocktails?

They both had a good few years before that point. 

On the screen, the two female characters linked arms and began walking along together down a gravel path towards the house in which their families would be staying for the weekend. 

It was a shame that the film was a rom-com between the slightly prettier woman and her friend's brother-in-law...

“They're so in sync,” Lily murmured, watching as the two female characters hugged and then began walking together, arm in arm. “I wonder how long they needed to practice moving together like that?”

Well, it helped that both actresses were practically the same height.

Taylor paused to consider for a moment. 

“I mean, if we looped arms I don't think it would take us too long to be able to do that either?”

Lily lowered her face into the blanket a little.

“That would be neat, actually... certainly be a good way to make sure we don't get separated whenever we're in a crowd.”

Well, that hadn't really been a problem either, given that Taylor was tall enough to act as a sort of lighthouse. Still, it would be nice to have the excuse, and they would probably look good together like that... hell, she'd held Lily's hand as they walked through the train station last weekend, and a little after that as well. People would ask questions though, but if Lily wasn't afraid to be seen close together like that...

“I was really glad when you let me hold on to you on the train the other day, it's like you read my mind.” 

The statement came out of nowhere, and it took her a moment to actually marshal her thoughts and reply.

“Well, you looked like you needed somebody to hold on to.”

Both physically and metaphorically, Lily had looked so pale when the subway started moving. If the other girl had simply mentioned that she didn't like the underground trains than Taylor would not have minded taking a taxi, but... well, it wasn't like they could get off once it set off.

“Um-hm... I did,” Lily said, and then, after a second's pause, added. “You're good to hold on to, good hugger as well. I know you're not really big on touch and stuff, though.” 

“It's not that I don't like it... it's just... hard to trust people with it. A lot of people haven't... y'know..."

“I'm sorry---”

“It's okay, I trust you. You, and my family, yeah.”

It was such a simple thing to admit, to give away that little piece of precious information. 

Evidently, Lily recognised what she'd just admitted to, as she was quiet for a moment before turning to face Taylor a little more, dragging her eyes away from the movie. 

“... Can I have a hug now?”

Oh, had Lily been silently wanting one this entire time? Goddammit, Taylor, she should have offered one when she first arrived, thinking about it. But she'd been holding the hot chocolates at the time and the thought had slipped her mind.

“Of course, come here.”

It was a little awkward, but Lily shifted so Taylor could bring an arm around her and pull her close, man, she was so really warm.

Was it strange, how physical their friendship had kind of gotten in recent days?

No, don't think about that... what was even the point in trying to work out the normal at this point? Taylor turned into light every day and could level a building, normality only meant so much. 

If Lily wanted a hug, then she would deliver.

Lily leaned in close, their bodies meeting and Taylor giving Lily a comforting squeeze. 

The movie continued, all the normal, contrived events one would expect from a film like this occurred. 

Not that Taylor really noticed, her attention was drawn away from the movie by the sensation of Lily in her arms, the way she could faintly feel the way she breathed, the way she was watching the screen. Lily looked as though she were watching, but not truly seeing, if such a thing made sense? Occasionally, she would bite her lip, as though considering something, only to circle back to something else.

The movie progressed with them in this position, quiet, watching but not focusing, and when the melodramatic finale arrived Taylor watched with a deadpan expression as it all tied together neatly with a bow.

“... That was terrible.”

It was Lily who said it. 

“It wasn't great,” Taylor said, trying to be diplomatic.

“It sucked. Annabelle and Jenna should have just eloped together they had so much more chemistry. I wish I'd rented something better for us, this sucked, I shouldn't have wasted our time together,” the other girl said, reaching for the remote.

“... I came to spend time with you, it could have been any movie, and I'd have enjoyed it so long as you were here,” she said, honestly. 

Lily paused in reaching for the remote for a second, for the first time in a little bit, there was a hint of a smile there, and even a little bit of colour in her cheeks.

“Yeah... yeah... I love having you here, I love having you with me, Taylor...” it looked like Lily wanted to say something else there; for a moment she wavered, a note in her throat that wanted to escape. 

And some part of Taylor jumped on it. 

A part of her observed with a muted horror even as the rest of her spoke up, 

“Hey, um... with how much you prefer seeing girls together, like to read about or watch, what do you think of girls who like girls?” she asked. 

Smooth. 

Of all the things she could have said, that was her approach to broaching this topic? Well, there was probably never a way that she could have done so. With how Lily could see whenever she entered her Breaker form, it wasn't like she could cheat and give herself a while longer to perfectly formulate her words, either.

Taylor had less changed the topic of conversation than driven an industrial tunnelling machine through it. 

Lily had gone deathly still, she swallowed and then turned to face her quite suddenly. 

“... Well, I like girls, not boys.”

Some part of Taylor's mind utterly stopped, another part jumped from metaphorical first gear into fifth as Lily watched her like a hawk suddenly.

Lily liked girls, there, absolute, unquestionable confirmation, and that meant---

“I...!” Taylor's breath hitched, but now was no time to pause, to stall as she always did. “I do too!”

Her heart jumped into her throat; there, she'd said it! 

She'd said it for Lily to hear.

Lily's face changed all at once, it was as if weeks' worth of tension and stress hit her from above, her shoulders sagged and she released a great breath that she'd been holding. 

“That's... that's great! I always get worried when I try to talk to people about it,” Lily said. 

“I... y-yeah, I... only realised, or, um... understood, recently.”

“Yeah... So... um...” Lily reached up and twirled a strand of hair around her finger, glancing away for a moment. 

Was she---

“I... um.”

She looked back at Taylor, as if for some sort of reassurance, even as Taylor did the same right back, looking for any indication of something, anything that would indicate that her own feelings were returned. 

They were both doing exactly the same thing right now, and that meant---

“I like you!” “I like you!”

They both talked over one another, their statements merging and interrupting the other, and they both used such a simple way of putting it as well.

“Can we go out?” Taylor asked, heart hammering in her chest,

“Yeah-Yes!”

There was a pause, a long pause in which they both stared at one another. Taylor's body flashed, automatically entering her Breaker form for a moment even as Lily's acceptance slowly, agonisingly, clicked in her head.

Lily's lips pressed together as if trying to restrain saying something or shouting, and then the other girl tackled her. 

Taylor teetered for a moment as the smaller girl impacted her, the force of Lily's light frame almost causing her to fall sideways onto the bed. Her crush's arms wrapped around her tight, and Lily's chin rested on her shoulder even as she gave a strangled giggle or laugh.

Automatically, she returned it, could Lily feel her heart hammering in her chest with how close they were now? 

Christ, that coming out and confession were one of the messiest things she'd ever endured. Compared to the sappy, perfectly scripted for dramatic effect confessions of the movie they'd just been watching, it was an absolute mess!

But despite that, Taylor found herself smiling so much it physically hurt.

Chapter Text

Taylor rubbed the corner of her eye, idly chewing on her lunch. 

She'd barely slept the previous night; between texting Lily and her anxious, delighted excitement, she'd only managed to get in a few hours of rest. But life cared not for teenage relationships or young love, and the next morning she'd dragged herself out of bed to get ready for school.

Despite feeling rather off and not with it, she still felt better than she had in ages.

On some level, it still hadn't really sunk in that Lily had said yes. She'd find herself sitting and then her thoughts would stray to her fellow Ward and, with a jolt, she'd remember last night.

The awkward confession at the same time, the multi-car pileup of a conversation that had been so much of it and somehow managing to work out for the best with the two of them now being... well, girlfriends.

She had a girlfriend!

The last two or so months since that day had all already been strange enough with gaining superpowers, a new school, the Wards... but a lot of it had been stuck in a particular mindset. 

But she felt so happy right now!

Smiling to herself, Taylor took another bite of her food.

It was quiet at school today; plenty of kids were off sick with a cold and with how small the classes were at St. Margaret's, it really had an impact. Currently, she was sat all by herself as she ate and thought and smiled.

The only problem was...

Her phone pinged.

Lily Hanazawa: School's boring today.

Lily Hanazawa: How are you?

Lily Hanazawa: Miss u

She had no idea what she was doing. 

Just reading over the trio of messages as they came in made her pause and wonder about a half-dozen different ways to respond

Like, she knew some stuff about relationships, but beyond planning out dates and trying to think of good things to do together, what was moving too fast? What was too slow? What were the things you said and did with somebody you were in a relationship with!?

How much should she just continue to act as she did before?

Wait, how many minutes was she supposed to wait before replying to Lily's message!? 

Too many questions, she didn't want to mess anything up because she didn't really know how this was supposed to go!

Taylor Hebert: Miss you too

Taylor Hebert: Lots of kids away sick so it's quieter, teacher got mad at a kid earlier for falling asleep whic hwas funny

Taylor Hebert: *which was

Lily Hanazawa: Really? I always hear about people doing that but never seen it actually happen

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

The fallout from the failure to capture Epoch was, in the grand scheme of things, minor. 

After all, who would expect a team of Wards, well-equipped and trained as they were for the most part, to bring down one of the most notable and potent villains in America's largest city? 

Instead, they'd all gotten pats on the back from a few of the other heroes who had taken part. And they'd basically had to do the same debrief five times to their bosses, their seniors, and then to the various Wards teams, all of whom wanted to know how things had gone. 

Because hot gossip was more valuable than money here.

Of course, there were two opinions above all that she cared about when it came to work stuff, and she'd already been told that she'd done a good job by Legend.

“---And then I created a sonic boom by slapping the air, which let Jouster almost hit him, but he froze himself in time so he got hit by the backwash of it, and now he's in the medbay, but we managed to foam him when he was frozen, even if he managed to get away by cheating.”

Lily nodded to her play-by-play recounting of what had happened with Epoch, smiling from time to time as she described how the operation had gone.

They were sitting together in one of their usual spots; the sofa overlooking the front of the streets, where, once, Lily dragged her to the gym. 

“I mean, most would say that your power is cheating enough, Taylor,” she teased during a lull in the story. 

“But time manipulation is, like, textbook unfair!” 

Her tone was just a little petulant.

“More unfair than moving at the speed of light?”

“I mean, at least it takes time for me to do stuff.”

Lily's brows raised higher. 

“... I mean it!”

The Archer chuckled at that, a grin increasingly pulling the corners of her lips upwards. She leaned more into the sofa, supporting her head with the palm of her hand and spoke up in such a forward yet honest way:

“My girlfriend's so cute when she's passionate.”

Taylor clammed up as any thought of how to reply evaporated from her head 

She still wasn't used to this whole compliment thing... or, on some level, that she had a girlfriend. It felt like something that should be said to somebody else, with her between the speaker and the intended recipient. 

She looked away, focusing on the window instead of Lily, and wondered what exactly she should say in return. 

Think, Taylor, think! 

It wasn't that hard to take a compliment, and yet she had no idea how to react to it. 

“Well, I think you're cute as well,” she said.

Man, that was so lame!

Wait, had the comment about Taylor's power being cheating just been a subtle signal to stop talking so much? 

That was something Emma used to sometimes do, giving a compliment or derailing the conversation when Taylor was midway through over-explaining something she liked. And then, later on, she'd turned her various passions, interests, and hobbies against her as ammunition... turned passion into pain.

“... I hope I haven't been boring, I mean, in how I tell things like that. I know I can get kinda into it.”

“Huh? No, not at all! I can listen to you talk about things you love all day. It's kind of something I noticed the first time we talked and the moment you were complaining about Moby Dick.”

Heh, she did do that, didn't she? 

“Listen, I just like to talk about books.”

“And I like to listen to you talk about books,” Lily countered.

“Um-hm... how are you doing with Dracula?”

“I actually finished it last night!”

“Why didn't you say so?”

She'd been waiting on Lily to finish the book for a while; Carmilla was so much shorter and more digestible than Dracula that she'd been forced to wait patiently for them to discuss the other book in detail. 

To that, Lily shrugged. 

“Well, I wanted to hear all about the operation with Standstill first. And to make sure that you were okay, and just kinda forgot.”

Well, that was sweet and all, but.

“What did you think about it, overall?”

“Well, I love and hate the ending.”

“... Hoping Lucy would suddenly come back and shack up with Mina?”

“No! I can't believe that Dracula dies from getting stabbed in the heart! Where was the narratively satisfying stake through the heart!”

“That's the bit you focus on!?”

“Yeah! I mean, Mina having a son born on the anniversary of Dracula's death and calling him Quincey is a bit weird, but I was so put off by the knife thing that I could barely focus on it!”

“That's such a funny thing to focus on, though!”

For the next few minutes, they discussed the ending to Dracula in detail, slipping from point to point so naturally. It was like a small, private book club all of their own in which Lily's frustrations at various characters came to the fore, and Taylor agreed or disagreed in turn. 

And in the end, Lily reached into her messenger bag and took out her mother's copy of Dracula. 

“Here, I've tried to take good care of it.”

Taylor took it back, the weathered cover still as creased and cracked as it had been the day that she'd first lent it to the other girl, back when they were just friends. Back then, passing over the book had been the biggest leap of trust she'd made in years. 

... Heh, it was strange to think how quickly things had changed, just a few weeks ago she was scared to give over the object that represented a small portion of her past. 

“... Taylor?”

“Sorry, I was just thinking about something.”

Lily watched her for a moment, before, with a softer voice, she asked a question:

“That book really means a lot to you, huh?”

“... Yeah. Well, I think I mentioned that my mum's gone?” Taylor said, glancing down at the cover beneath her fingers. "My house is full of her stuff, but at the same time, this has her writing and opinions in, so it's special in a way, I don't want to lose more of her."

Every artifact of her mother's was something irreplaceable, from the old slippers she used to wear whilst making pancakes in the morning to her wedding ring, there would never be more of Annette Hebert in the world. 

“Somebody once took her flute and basically destroyed it, so I'm a little overprotective of her stuff ever since.”

“Why? I mean, why'd they do that?”

Why indeed? 

It was something Taylor had wondered about near constantly, and yet, for all her attempts to find out---

“I don't know.”

There was a long silence between herself and Lily, the other Ward blinked slowly but said nothing. Was it a case of she didn't know what to say, or was she waiting for Taylor to decide whether she would say more?

Pausing, Taylor considered how to explain things. 

How much detail should she give? 

Did she even want to do this?

... She did, yes. 

“She used to be a friend. Best friend, actually. We first met at kindergarten, we spent every weekend at one another's houses. Spent all this time together for years and then after my mums death my dad booked me for a summer camp and I came back and just... everything was different...”

And so, she began to explain the last two or so years of her life, the various threads and events and small stories of the bullying and the decline of her life threading together. The strange air between them, Sophia, the escalations over time and the increasingly nasty ways of getting to her through her looks, her mother, all the little secrets they'd shared over their childhood.

She only paused whenever some office worker or fellow Parahuman would walk past them, invading this small, sofa-bound sanctuary that they had created up here. 

And in the end, once all was said and done...

“She was my first crush, I think.” 

“Ah, and that makes it all the worse. Well, that's horrible, I'm glad you don't have to see her anymore.”

“I mean, only because I got powers. If I hadn't, I'd still be there.”

Lily gave her a hug. 

She accepted it, enjoying the sensation. 

A part of her was disappointed on some level, she'd thought that she should probably cry at all this, that it might be a moment of catharsis after everything. But she'd spent so long dwelling on it, and so many nights all cried out that there was nothing left to give. 

“Thanks, Lily...”

A hand reached up and gave the back of her head a pat. 

They sitting together like this for a long moment, and then pulled apart. 

Lily did not scoot back to her previous position, instead she remained sitting close. 

“For what it's worth, my first crush said I looked like a lizard.”

It was clearly an attempt to lighten the mood, to take the sad story of Taylor's first crush and the betrayal that accompanied it and lighten her mood.

“Wait really?”

Lily nodded.

“Yeah. Her brother had this big, chubby lizard with a blue-tongue, and she said I looked like it because I once stuck my tongue out at her after having one of those blue popsicles.”

That was... funny to imagine. 

“Still, I'm sorry to hear about that. That girl sounds like a right bitch.”

“It's okay. I kind of accepted it ages ago, even if I was too stubborn to fully let it go.”

And wasn't that sad? To have reached the point where betrayal and hurt had ceased being painful, and more like the sort of throbbing, aching pain you had after getting an injection in the mouth. Something that you could forget about from time to time as it faded away, only to resurface the moment you actually thought about it?

“Yeah, I get that... it's like me and my folks. After a point, you just... kinda accept it,” Lily said. 

Taylor nodded, not trusting her words. 

That whole five stages of grief thing, right? Reaching the point where you just didn't have any more emotional weight to throw at something and just had to accept the fact that things were how they were. And those facts were that her best friend had become a raging turbo-bitch out of thin air and pushed her to the point that she'd had such a severe breakdown that she'd gained superpowers. 

“Well, if I ever meet her, I'll give her the biggest slap of her life. And look on the plus side, there's one good thing that came from her being such a bitch.”

“What?” 

“She made sure that I got to meet you without anyone in my way.”

And then Lily had the audacity to wink at her.

“That's so fucking corny I think I might die,” she deadpanned, even as she was unable to control the heat rising in her cheeks. Honestly, she was so inexperienced with all of this that even such a stupid, cheesy line now had her acting like some sort of idiot. 

“You're smiling, though!”

Goddammit, she was.

“You're such a goober.”

“That's goobette to you!”

“I am not sure that goober has a feminine form, Lily.”

“Well, then I'll let you call me it as a special nickname.”

“Lily is prettier, though.”

Once more, they lapsed into silence. 

Her hand atop her mother's copy of Dracula, Taylor stared out the window and over the street below. 

Just like with previous times they had sat here together, streams of cars went past, the eternal traffic problems of New York providing a steady stream of vehicles for her to watch. She picked out the famous yellow cabs, vans, and supercars driven by people with far too much money, watched all these people go about their lives. She wondered whether any of them gave much thought to the fact they were driving past the USA's largest PRT branch.

The first time they'd sat here, it had been raining. 

The second, grey and cloudy.

And now, it was a bright spring day, throwing the world into such a beautiful light, the vehicles below like streams of colourful beetles crawling past. 

“... Do you think we should tell everyone at some point? About us, I mean?” 

She checked the corridor around them again. It was deserted, and yet even though there was nobody even visible near them, and yet she still dropped her voice as she asked the question.

“Hmm...” a moment's consideration. “I mean, we could. I kind of don't want to, though.”

Was she embarrassed to be seen with Taylor like that?

Well, they'd gone out together, but that could be interpreted as them just being friends. Evidently not, because of their little meet ups before...

Evidently guessing at her thoughts, Lily hurried to add:

“I don't want to be part of the dating drama of the Wards, you know? I have enough problems with Jason trying to hit on me without people being annoying about it.”

“Is he still doing that?”

An ugly, protective anger surged in Taylor's chest, it was so sudden that she almost didn't know what it was for a moment. But then again, wasn't it natural to get angry with people who wouldn't stop hitting on the person you were in a relationship with? 

Yeah. It wasn't unreasonable.

“I think he's getting the message after the last few times. I think he's also too scared to try and approach whenever you are with me.”

“Well, guess I can continue being a guard dog.”

“I prefer 'knight in shining armour'.”

“Shining, because of my power?”

Lily grinned, but didn't confirm her suspicion.

The other girl did have a point, though.  

The inane Wards chatter could range from the incredibly mundane, of the sort that would normally be found within a classroom, to the bizarre and esoteric. 

And the Wards dating scene was even more chaotic... Who would have guessed that teenagers who had been pushed to the point of mental breakdown to the point of gaining powers would have difficult romantic lives? Between hang-ups, insecurities and, in some cases, inhuman biology, discussions about romance were rather common in the Wards, and not always in a good way. 

Maintaining a relationship with somebody without a power introduced a degree of imbalance between partners, but the alternative was two Parahumans dating, with all of the psychodrama that could come about as a result of such...

Off-Kilter's near continuous hurricane of boyfriend related drama was proof enough, and Taylor still sometimes had to endure 'girl talk' about relationships after that accursed punch-bag incident in the gym. 

“I think keeping it secret for now is the best,” she mused.

She wasn't sure that she was ready to reveal the truth to the world anyway... it had been hard enough to come out to her family, let alone all the strangers and acquaintances within the Wards. 

Her deepest thoughts had been something she'd locked away for so long that even she had managed to convince herself that they didn't exist, after all.

“... Do you want do something this weekend? I'm not sure what, but maybe some Italian? It's been a while since I last went to a restaurant,” Taylor proposed.

“Sure, that'd be nice.”

She reached over and put a hand on Lily's. 

Her girlfriend glanced at her, and then turned her hand over so that they could properly interlace their fingers. 

It made her heart do little flips. 

Chapter Text

“You've been handling everything really well lately.”

This was an observation made by Shelter to Lily as they practiced at the range one evening. 

Some would say that engaging in idle chatter partway through firing at targets was a bad idea. After all, doing so would throw off your aim and compromise focus. But anybody saying that didn't understand that in the middle of a cape fight, there was so much chaos, orders, and confusion that you basically had to learn to run, gun, and talk all at the same time. 

Lily hummed loudly, indicating for Shelter to go on and explain what she meant by that. 

“You know, with what's going on with the folks...”

'The folks.'

To be honest, Lily had never really considered her parents or the majority of her family to be 'folks'. 

They were family, in the sense that they were the people she was biologically related to, rather than a group of people who were close to her and that she cared for. Once upon a time, sure... but the distinction between 'mum and dad' and 'my parents' was one that had developed a thousand hairline cracks over time, until quietly, it all shattered one day.

“I suppose,” she said, non-committally. “Helps that things are going well, and I think the judge is taking my side after the last hearing, in which he heard about what growing up in that house was like. They managed to track down one of my brothers and he testified on my behalf...”

Shelter glanced at her. 

“... And how do you feel about that?”

“I just want it done, Kina,” she said, restraining a sigh.

Shelter paused for a moment, then nodded and sent a few more shots down the range of her own. 

What else could she say about the matter? Her parents were like a patch of mint in a garden; no matter what metaphorical pesticide she applied or effort she made to uproot, they always seemed to come back in her life. 

The stress of the recent cases had taken its toll, and yet, unlike in the past...

“Why do you ask?”

Shelter didn't speak for a moment, focusing on her power and sending a basketball-sized sphere of force down the range, which upon hitting the target, expanded into a short-lived globe of solid force. It looked similar to spun sugar, although with a clench of Shelter's hand, it broke apart. 

“You're smiling a lot recently, even with everything going on.”

Lily silently took out her next bolt and nocked it against the string of her arbalest.

Well, she supposed that for all her efforts, her change in mood had been noticed. There was only so much that one could hide away one's deepest thoughts and feelings, after all.

“I've had some good news in my life,” she admitted. 

“Oh?”

Lily didn't take the prompt this time, raising her arbalest, she took a moment to aim, then fired.

Just off-centre. 

Dammit... oh well, it was still within a few inches. 

“What's the good news?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because you're not normally so evasive, and it's usually a bad thing when you don't want to share things.”

Kina's Cape name of Shelter was quite fitting; she did her best to take care of the members of the Archer squad beneath her. Sometimes, though, Lily wished that the other girl's overbearing instincts were just a little less intense. 

She rather suspected that whatever the other girl's Trigger was, it was to do with failing somebody close to her, and in a big way. 

“It's good news,” Lily reiterated. “And it's a personal thing, nothing to do with being a Ward or anything like that.”

“... Is it to do with that Glint girl?”

A reflexive spike of irritation shot through her at Shelter's nosiness. 

“We're good friends, sitting reading with her makes me smile.”

Shelter turned her head fully, and even if the upper portion of her face was covered, Lily could tell that she was sending her one of those incredibly flat expressions.

“You sit with her every night that she's in.”

Perhaps it was just her annoyance at this line of conversation being pursued, but couldn't Shelter take the hint here? 

“And I spend hours with you guys every day you are in. It's kind of a side effect of living here, Shelter, I get to know everyone because I don't have much of a life outside of the Wards.” The words came out with a certain amount of bitterness, because outside of school, she really didn't have much of a life. “Glint looked lonely, I thanked her for saving our butts that one time, we talked about what she was reading and ended up as reading buddies.”

Lily really hadn't expected to fall in love with the quiet, powerful new Ward, but she was damn glad that she'd had the courage to approach Taylor that day.

“I'm just surprised is all. She doesn't seem very social, even with her own team.”

Well, maybe that's because Lily and Taylor just clicked far better and she'd made more of an effort!

And frankly, Lily wasn't much in the mood to share Taylor's time. 

The book club was fine, a few hours every fortnight, but apart from that, she wanted her adorable girlfriend all to herself, to chat and relax with and tease and spoil. Her thoughts, weeks ago in the depths of the night in which she had likened herself to a leech were not untrue, in a way. 

Lily didn't bother responding to Shelter's comment. 

“Well, I do have incredible charisma and masterful social skills.”

Lily said it with a smile, putting levity into the response that she didn't quite feel. 

But at this point, Lily had gotten rather good at injecting emotions she didn't really feel into her responses. Admittedly, it was a lot easier to conceal your emotions and project a false face when the upper portion of your face was covered.

“I envy you sometimes, you'll be a great Captain some day.”

It sounded as though Shelter had dropped the matter, whether she bought into Lily's slight joke there or not didn't matter. 

Lily had never really thought about being a team Captain, but she supposed that as she got older, eventually it might happen. Frankly, she didn't care about such a thing, graduating to the Protectorate and the emancipation from being a ward of the state was far more important to her. 

But the here and now was difficult enough without thinking about the responsibility of future Lily. 

“I've got a good example to work with.”

Shelter gave a dry chuckle, and they lapsed into silence, returning to their practice. 

Occasionally there would be a comment of 'good shot' or 'dammit' when the targets suddenly switched to a harder setting, but for the most part. It was a companionable enough silence, though.

And as so often was the case with Lily, silence and lulls in the conversation brought with them reflection. 

Things with Taylor were... slow. 

No, not slow, steady might be a better word for it. 

It was not a relationship of fast paced, escalating excitement thus far. 

Taylor was a good listener, always there for her, cute, funny... a lot of great things, but just like making friends with her, romance with her was clearly a journey and process. 

It was something that made more and more sense as she learned more about her girlfriend and her past, the conversation just the other day had gone a long way to fill in a few gaps. 

A first crush who had turned against her and, by the sounds of it, been a major contributor to her Trigger, her not even properly realising that she was gay until recently, when she'd finally been out of that environment...

Point being, Taylor was in a very different boat from Lily, who had loved and lost, as it were, through breakups both good and bad. 

And, much as she may wish to... she couldn't push Taylor too quickly in their relationship.

Just holding hands seemed to be her girlfriend's limit for the moment, normally after an extensive search of the surroundings to make sure that nobody they knew was watching them.

Much as Lily wanted to do more like linking arms on dates and smooch that lovely face, she also didn't want to scare Taylor off by being too forward.

They'd also only been together for a short while, it was fine. 

Lily had destroyed previous relationships, or attempts at them, by moving too quickly and being the candle that burns brightest and thus shortest. And there was a certain, tortuous delightfulness in taking things slow, in watching the shy hedgehog that was Taylor emerge from her den.

“I'm done.”

Lily set down the arbalest, the container of bolts beside her was empty, and she would need to recover them once Shelter was done. 

But Shelter didn't need ammunition for her power, she just pointed a finger and fired it. 

“Not going to do another set before bed?”

“Nah. I put a few hundred down earlier after breakfast.”

“Damn, dedicated.”

More that Lily hadn't had anything else to do; she hadn't been feeling a morning gym session, seeing how she would be having one with Taylor later. 

Returning her weapon to its normal locker, Lily checked her phone. 

Taylor should have started her shift a while ago, but would have been caught up in Lancer team stuff for a while, especially after the business with Epoch. But there was a message from her girlfriend waiting for her, letting Lily know that she was waiting in the usual place. 

With pep in her step, she headed upstairs, and found Taylor on the common room sofa between the bookcases. Although her girlfriend wasn't reading a book today, instead she was on her phone, seemingly deep in thought. 

Even though Lily couldn't see her expression behind the visor, she knew her girlfriend well enough to know that she was frowning. 

“All good, Glint?” she called out, prompting the other girl to look up. 

Taylor straightened, smiled and lowered the phone, a part of Lily was pretty sure that the room physically brightened as well, but that might just be her poetic side coming through after one too many classic novels. 

“Yeah, all good, how are you today, Lily?”

The way she smiled up at her did wonders to cheer her up. 

Always did, admittedly.

“Not bad, just was in the range,” she explained, settling herself down beside Glint. “Thanks for waiting.”

She leaned over and bumped shoulders for a moment as she did so, just enough to get her fix of Taylor contact for the day, and one that could easily be passed off as her losing balance for a moment. 

Taylor leaned a little into it as well. 

It was just a small movement, but more than enough to send the message back. 

Smooth.

“It's cool, we had this big meeting anyway to go through..." she said, and then, in a lower voice. "Are there a lot of people around?”

“Nah, it's quiet, when I went by the gym earlier it was empty.”

A nod, and Taylor moved to stand.

“I'm just gonna go to the bathroom, can you watch my phone for a second?”

“Of course,” she replied, taking the phone from her girlfriend and allowing her fingers to linger in contact for a second. 

Taylor smiled back, then set off, leaving her behind on the sofa. 

Honestly, what a sweetheart... Lily knew for sure that Taylor wouldn't trust anybody else, even her own team, with her phone for a second. Sure, it was kind of a given that they would trust one another as girlfriends, but small moments like this always went so far to reinforce the notion. 

She glanced down at the standard issue phone in her hand. 

It seemed that Taylor, in her distraction, had left it on with the last thing she'd been searching at the top of the screen in big bold letters.

How soon to have a first kiss---

Lily set the phone screen face-down in her lap and placed a hand on it. 

There was no need to intrude too much there, not when Taylor had already trusted her enough to leave the phone with her. 

She could wait as long as Taylor needed to be ready, after all.