Work Text:
When Duke told her not to blow up a building, Cypress thought that was really rude of him.
So of course, she did everything in her power to blow up not one, but three buildings.
When the villain sent their cliche evil mastermind speech to the tower in the form of an unlisted YouTube video, Cypress knew they were pathetic and stupid, and that their motivation beyond “Ruling the world above all you peons” was equally as pathetic and stupid.
She clocked them as the loser that they very much are.
It started two weeks ago.
Cypress was sent a random email while working. She says working because that's what Duke requires her to do, but really she was just playing a Roblox Tycoon on her work computer. As long as she told anyone who asked that, ‘yes, the 2010s dubstep you’re hearing on my laptop’s speakers are very important to my work’ then she’d be able to get away with anything.
That’s really all she took from Duke’s stern—but not scary stern, it was more of a senile-old-man-who-thinks-he’s-still-cool type of stern—warning. One day, when she was spying on Nick solely because she knows he hates it, she discovered that he has a similar definition of work as Cypress. When Logan came into his office to ask him about a patrol report, Nick just lied and played it off. Logan didn’t suspect a thing.
And so Cypress discovered the best trick to working in the Tower:
Don’t.
So, when she got an email during work, two weeks ago, she deleted it without hesitation. Getting sent work emails from her Emperor email account means she actually needs to do work, but if she just deletes it and pretends she never got it, then what's really the harm, right?
Work email? She didn’t get one.
Simple as that.
Now, normally she’d just delete it without looking at it whatsoever (plausible deniability is very important), but this time, something caught her eye before she could. The sender didn’t have a Commission provided email address. Every hero and employee in the tower had one, and that was pretty much the only way they were able to send emails to one another securely. Something about buying out a nice type of encryption or some shit that kept the emails secure enough for people to talk freely through them—Cypress didn’t care when she first heard about it and she doesn’t care now.
But this email wasn’t from the Commission.
[email protected] is shady as shit. The fact that the email didn’t have anything in it beyond a YouTube URL as the subject should’ve raised some alarms in Cypress’s head.
…
That was weeks ago, and it certainly didn't interest her enough to not delete it.
It’s not her fault she deleted an email from a villain who was threatening to nuke the whole city before she could even read it! Honest!
Nobody even reads emails anymore. Should’ve just hacked a news broadcast or something cool, not email Emperor of all heroes.
But they did, and she deleted it, and nothing happened for two weeks. Probably because they realized their threat got totally cock blocked.
It wasn’t until that morning, when Duke called everyone down for a mandatory meeting that she found out what the email was even about.
He sat all top ten heroes down and brought the fancy flatscreen TV out from its hiding place inside the meeting room’s wall. After a moment, he played the suspiciously familiar unlisted YouTube video.
A figure stood in the center of the frame, there was a bright light behind them that silhouette them while also blocking out their appearance. A mask and dark red suit was outlined, but nothing else could be gleaned about the person. The room around them, although hidden by stark shadows, looked to be a warehouse of some kind. To the person’s left was a crate with the top removed.
They stood there for multiple seconds before eventually speaking. Their voice was filtered through a voice modulator and sounded robotic and choppy. It sounded as if multiple people were speaking at once, but no single voice could be isolated.
“Hello, Heroes,” they spat the name like a curse, but there was a rehearsed feeling to it as well, as if the person had said that line multiple times before hitting record.
“You can call me Denotate—”
Cypress pressed a button, the villain froze in place. “Pause,” she said. “I am not calling this guy Detonate. What kind of stupid loser calls themself Detonate?” She fought back a smile. Ellie looked amused, but beyond that nobody else seemed invested in how stupid this guy’s name was.
“Can we continue?” Duke said, resigned. It was almost as if he didn’t realize how fucking lame this villain was sounding.
“Yeah. Sure.”
The video played again.
“—and I am here to liberate the people of Alden.” The figure—Detonate—made a show of looking down at their nails. The light behind them wasn’t making it nearly as cinematic as the villain must’ve hoped, but it also seemed to be the only thing in the scene making anything mysterious or ominous.
“For too long, Alden has been controlled by weak-minded peons like yourselves. You’ve tricked the world into believing in your might, but I intend to prove how wrong you are.” The villain dropped their hand, and their voice took on a more stony tone than it did before.
“To fix this city, no, this world, I must first break it down.”
Cypress burst out laughing. None of the other heroes reacted, but she saw the way Sam covered her mouth and how Jene smiled just a bit wider.
“In twenty-four hours, ten high-powered bombs will go off across the city. Each of them will target the foundations of this pathetic system you have made in some way. If you really think yourselves worthy of your status, I implore you to search for them and defeat me.”
Detonate seemed almost cocky.
“Should even one go off, though, you’ll find the damage far greater than even your deepest nightmares. I wish you luck, pathetic little heroes, for you will need it.”
The video went black.
Duke pressed a button in front of him to stop the video, but he kept the TV out.
Nobody in the meeting room spoke. Though Logan had a steely look on his face.
“I received this through an email two hours ago. Bypass looked into it, and we discovered where it came from. We believe Detonate is a man named Andrew Johnson.” A mugshot of a regular looking guy showed up on the TV as Duke said that. The guy had a stubble and looked like the prime demographic for motor oil scented soap.
The idiot didn’t seem too interesting, but had a couple assault charges, as well as one charge for possession of illegal firearms.
The quintessential loser who thinks they can fix their shitty behaviour through villainy.
“Police have been on the lookout for him, but have yet to find anything substantial.” Duke said. He dropped the all-business tone slightly and then continued, “he’s not… the biggest threat around.” Putting it lightly. “But he may be annoying enough that you should all at least be aware.”
At least Duke didn’t take this guy as seriously as the villain was taking himself. Nobody called Detonate is worth the Commission’s heaviest hitters.
“Logan and Nessa, I think you should go together to look for any bombs, Bypass and the police will assist.” Duke looked at Bill, “We’ve already found one of them, and police want you, Bill, to be with them when they open it up. Apparently there's a mechanism there that’s been causing them trouble.”
“You have a patrol in two hours,” Duke looked at his watch, and then at Cypress. Of course he had her schedule memorized. “So try to look out for anything suspicious while you’re out.
“And please,” He stressed, “Don’t blow anything up.”
He said it like it was an actual possibility. Like Cypress might actually blow something up even though she wasn’t the fucker who placed bombs all over Alden.
Wow how kind of him. Nessa and Logan get to help, Bill gets to defuse a bomb, everyone else gets to just sit on their ass and get paid for jack shit, but Cypress has to go on a normal old patrol. Not only that, but Duke has to treat her like a kid in the kitchen the whole time. ‘Put that knife down,’ ‘don’t put your hand there,’ ‘go sit in the living room while I’m cooking.’ She cooks all her own meals, why was he treating her like she couldn’t. She’s a great hero.
“Why am I the only one you’re saying that to?”
“Because you’re the most likely to blow up a building when there's an active terrorist on the loose.” Duke didn't even think before saying it.
Bitch.
“Am not.”
“The old Southmills Mall says otherwise,” Duke deadpanned.
Cypress bristled at that. He really had no reason bringing that up. It wasn't her fault.
“Southmill Mall is still there. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Cypress crossed her arms.
“What about the old one, then?” Duke raised his eyebrow. Ellie seemed very invested in this conversation even though it didn’t involve that two-faced cat.
Cypress hummed. “Dunno. Heard it got torn down.”
“Yeah. Because you blew it up, Cypress.”
Okay then. She sees how it is.
“That dumb prick Faucet was the one with the fucking shitty fire boy and water girl powers! It’s not my fault she made a steam explosion or whatever the shit it was! Nobody told me steam could explode!”
The villain never gave them a proper name to call her, but between Cypress's ‘Faucet’ and everyone else's Hot Spring, she still made herself known. Her attacks were some of the most costly, with every last one leading to thousands worth of property damage.
Cypress only had the misfortune of fighting her once, but it was still one of the worst fights she's never had. Damn villain would either drench or cook you, there was no alternative and she hated it.
“Everyone told you steam could explode.”
“Shut up you’re literally hard of hearing. Maidenless. Old bat. Expired cheese slice.”
“See, this is why you needed the warning.”
Fuck him.
“Fuck you.” Cypress stood up.
“Take care on your patrol, Cypress.” Duke didn’t move from his place at the head of the table.
“Take care sucking on my cock, Bitchfuck.” Cypress slammed the door behind her.
As she was storming towards the elevator, she heard everyone get up out of their seats to follow Duke’s dumb orders. Sheeple, the lot of them.
Blow up a building her ass.
One building wasn’t enough. No, she’ll blow up a whole city block just to stick it to him.
Don’t start nothing, won’t fucking be nothing.
Wind, as a concept, isn’t real. Sure, wind is real, but, like, the concept of it is not.
There’s air and then there's fast air. Fast air happens when you move real fast. Unless you can move real fast through walls, in which case fast air only happens sometimes. Fast air has nothing to do with wind or the atmosphere or momentum—all that sciencey shit is way off—but the average Joe would still call fast air wind. The average Joe is, in fact, wrong. The average Joe is also stubborn and annoying, so for simplicity's sake, when Cypress says wind, she means fast air.
Wind isn’t real, but damn, does Cypress love running across rooftops and having the wind bite back her breath. There’s something so soothing about it. That brief moment between buildings, hovering above alleyways or narrow roads, knowing that if she miscalculated her jump even a little she’ll end up dead. The way it clips at her hood and, if it wasn’t fastened onto her mask, how it’d get knocked behind her as the wind assaults it.
When, for a brief moment, she forgets how to breathe and has to force herself into doing it. Deep, intentional breaths that shake and struggle to fill her lungs because everything is moving so fast that the air can’t seem to catch and keep her alive. The way she forces it to anyway. That feeling is one of the greatest.
It’s not a sting like in her knuckles, but it's present in the same way and it holds just as much weight. It’s real and meaningful.
She isn’t happy that Duke reminded her of her patrol, she’s pissed at what he implied with his whole “don’t be like Detonate” speech, but she also can’t stay mad when this is so cathartic.
Plus, she has a plan to stick it to him. A grand idea that involves one (1) loser, one amazing, attractive, brilliant, overpowered, amazing, hero, and nine bombs that have already been placed around the city and will blow up in… somewhere between twenty to ten hours. Look, she didn’t actually ask when the email got sent to Duke, and she’s not exactly a clock herself.
Which means she needs to put her plan in action sooner rather than later.
After Cypress lands on the next roof, she stops what she’s doing and looks around. The air comes back into her lungs and her hood stops tugging at her mask.
Even though a part of her mind is always paying attention in case something comes up, Cypress usually patrols on auto-pilot. This time, it seems she’s gotten down to Lower. Close enough to her house that her plan gets that much easier. She recognizes a good portion of the streets around her. There’s a good deli in the building she just jumped from, and the Lion’s Den is only a bus ride away.
She turns around, back on top of the deli, and continues that way until recognizable becomes familiar. Cypress takes a detour around a corner that leads almost straight to her apartment, windy as it may be. She knows most people don’t wander by, which makes it the perfect place to change pace. Most of the buildings are for lease and the ones that aren’t are more low-level offices than proper businesses or apartments. The subway and main bus routes are a couple blocks over as well. She’s walked this particular corner enough to know nobody will see Emperor here.
Even though most heroes wouldn’t care for being secretive, Cypress prefers it. Knowing when to stay hidden is a good skill to have.
Cypress descends to the ground, scaling one of the for lease building’s windows to get down. From there, she stays on the ground and makes her way back to her apartment. Casa De Cypress. She turns down an alley, then another, and on her third she climbs over a chain-link fence into a fourth. After one more turn, she reaches the fifth and final alley in the maze of them. This part of Alden was old, old enough to have enough space to navigate between buildings.
When she left her old place, she did everything she could to live around here. The older districts of the city, the ones made before Alpine got renamed to Main Street, were way sparser than all the new shit. The original construction’s been built over and repaired again and again, but the map of the place stayed the same. Looser and less packed than most districts. It’s the perfect place to have and keep secrets, and there's a good sense of community in that fact. People know when to keep their mouths shut here.
Jene always asks her why she never just moved into the tower, and Duke thinks she fought way too much about having her own space when she first became a hero, but neither of them get it like she does. Emperor is recognized and pardoned by the government, but Cypress isn’t. Part of her probation made it mandatory she live in the tower, but she fought it anyways because she needed to.
Cypress needs her own place, because if she didn’t have that she would be nothing but Emperor. Jene wanted to live in the tower, so did Ellie. Probation was easy for them.
Cypress cares about her identity more than both of them combined. Tigress and The Rattler might be a good way to live for them, but Emperor needed to stay a title for her.
After climbing on top of a strategically-placed dumpster, Cypress pulls the ladder to her fire escape down. She climbs up three floors before opening and climbing through her window. She has a good enough security system that she doesn’t worry about locking it much.
Said security system patters up to her the moment he hears her. A smile tugs at her face as she reaches her hand out to the fluffy form in front of her. Floof nudges his head against her hand and her smile grows bigger. When she pulls her hand away, it carries enough raccoon fur to make a sweater. She wipes her hand on her pants and moves to her laptop.
It takes less than a minute to get what she needs from it. It closes with a soft click and she turns back towards the window.
Floof taps his paw on the ground expectantly. She doesn't turn to face him.
“I’m not feeding you again. You’re getting fat and my bank account can’t take it.”
Floof barks behind her, and she just shakes her head.
“No,” she says. “You’re not gonna peer pressure me and you’re not gonna get more food.”
A tail swishes.
“Just go dumpster diving. We both know you can open the windows and door.”
Floof almost sounds human in how he chitters at her, his annoyance and offence clearly written in his voice.
“Mhm. Bye Floof.”
She closes the window behind her and climbs back into the alley.
Instead of going the way she came, she goes down a different string of alleys and ends a little closer to where she needs to go.
The heroes work fast, but Cypress works faster. She trusts the heroes to find all the bombs before they can go off, but she wants at least two to level a building or five before that. Which means that, for the sake of spite, she’ll need to break the law just a teeny tiny bit.
Duke’ll forgive her and Nessa will hopefully cover for her. Nobody will get hurt at least. That’s a good defense right?
Detonate’s a moron. She doesn’t know much about the guy but she knows he’s a moron. He sent her a bomb threat through email, and when it was obvious she didn’t read it, he just stomped his feet a bit before trying again with a new email and a new hero. No self respecting villain does that.
Andrew Johnson. That's enough to work with. She has a villain to catch and a loser to extort. Both of those people are the same person.
Nothing better than getting shit from the source, right?
When Cypress kicks the door down, the blandest motherfucker she’s ever seen snaps his head to her. He looks like a deer in headlights.
He shrieks the least manly shriek Cypress has ever heard.
She stalks over to him and he falls over in his seat to try and get away. The spinny chair clatters to the ground loudly.
She stops about midway there, close enough that he is scared shitless but probably far enough that he won’t jump out of the window in panic. Hopefully.
“Hi Andrew.” Cypress waves her hand playfully, apparently that makes people lower their guard.
His guard just raises.
“Listen. I gotta know.” She taps her chin. It's very animated, but she thinks it gets the tone across. “Where did you put those bombs?”
For all intents and purposes, she sounds like she's talking to a child about their imaginary friend rather than asking a villain where he put all his allegedly-city-destroying bombs. Those are pretty much the same thing though, right?
“I—” He stutters, “I’m not telling you, hero! Your false reign will end and nothing you do will st—”
Her expression darkens. “Yeah, I don’t actually care.”
“Tell me where the bombs are or I’ll bring you to the Tower just to drop you off its roof. You really wanna know what it’s like to fall a thousand feet?” She tilts her head.
“I don’t want to do that.” Her voice reeks of false sincerity, but it falls through when she remembers who she’s actually talking to. “Even though we seriously need to talk about your naming abilities, cause, seriously, Detonate? That was the best you could come up with? You’re trying to sound cool and mysterious but we live in a city with people who go by The Rattler and Rocket Man. Calling yourself the first word people associate with bombs is not how to go about making a memorable name. You want memorable? Make it big, not basic.”
“I—I thought it was cool…”
“It’s not. When Crimson called in a meeting all the top ten heroes laughed at your name. It’s lame.”
“Yeah well… Emperor’s not much bet—”
Cypress raises her hand to shush him. He shushes. “Don’t even finish that sentence, yes it fucking is. Emperor makes people’s heads turn. It demands attention. Detonate just sounds like a shitty comic book villain, but not one of those high-budget-eventual-move-adaptation comics; one of the shitty ones made with two dollars and second-hand pens and paper.”
“My mom liked it…”
“Yeah this is why no one is taking you seriously.”
Cypress huffs. “Just tell me where your bombs are so I can nuke a city street or some shit.”
He blinks.
He blinks again.
He looks like he just heard that the alphabet is getting replaced with days of the week.
“What?”
“I want. To use. Your. Bombs.”
“Why..?”
“Crimson pissed me off.”
Cypress doesn’t speak French. He’s looking at her like she does. Like she just busted into song in some long-forgotten language.
She groans and drags a hand down her face. It slides easily off her mask, but it's the thought that counts.
“Listen, tell me all their locations so I can prove to my boss that he’s an idiot. I’ll go relocate them to some abandoned buildings or something so that it doesn’t kill anyone, and then I’ll laugh in his face when he doesn’t find them in time. You can even take the blame for it, yeah?” She studies his expression, “They’ve already found one and diffused it. You pissed a lot of people off with that email stunt and now they’re gonna find the rest of them before they go off. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen, yeah?.”
Did this guy get lobotomized before she showed up or something? He isn’t saying a word.
“I—uh, yeah, sure. It’s, they’re, uh. Right… Um. One moment.” Then very quickly, “P-please.
He gets up and moves to his computer. Cypress just taps her wrist impatiently and he moves just a bit quicker. The sound of pen scribbling against paper makes her tilt her head. His hands are shaking and Cypress is trying so hard not to break character and laugh.
When he holds the note in her direction, he waits for her to take it before retching his hand away before she can… do something. She would never bite him, she’ll contract cancer if she does. Double cancer.
Cypress doesn’t waste time grabbing it. She thinks she recognizes some street addresses on it, but the note is in her pocket before she can properly inspect it. This guy’s too scared to do anything less than what she tells him to.
She walks out the door like the badass motherfucker she is. When she hears him collapse to his knees as she’s leaving, it makes her exit just that much more cool.
What a good day to be a hero.
Relocating the bombs is easy, it’s making sure they won’t explode anyone that’s the hard part.
She’s trying to commit terrorism, not murder.
Even though she doesn’t care much about who she pisses off, she doesn’t want some homeless guy to lose all his shit in an explosion she technically caused, so she takes a great deal of time just going around and finding the emptiest of empty buildings.
It ends up costing her the entire afternoon. She missed dinner.
It also means that there are three bombs placed in three completely different parts of the city. She even lucked out enough that one of them is in Middle instead of just some warehouse or half-falling-apart-already apartments in Lower. It means that, when she gets back to the tower after an hour later, the heroes are actually starting to panic.
Duke has everyone combing the streets. The police are working overtime. Bypass is summoning fifty years of arthritis in her hands, her hands literally breaking her keyboard with how much she’s typing. Cypress didn’t even know there were that many cameras in all of Alden before today.
Duke tries to get her to go out again and help, but she insists that she already had her patrol today and is legally allowed a bit of rest. Duke eyes her suspiciously, but gets called off somewhere else before he can ask any questions.
Jene is not nearly as busy as Duke is, however.
“Since when do you, Missus ‘I’m gonna avoid the medbay like it killed my grandma’, actually listen to the rules?”
He pushes himself away from the wall like he thinks he’s cool. Cypress doesn’t point out that his shirt is backwards and the tag is sticking out. Or that it's neon purple, she has a feeling that one is intentional.
“Since it means I get crisis pay without actually working on the crisis.” Her grin is crooked and if she had shades right now she’d be the coolest person in the history of people. She should look into getting shades.
Cypress pulls out her phone and looks at prices online.
She puts it back in her pocket when Google shows her a three-hundred dollar pair. No thank you.
Jene looks at her like she has no morals whatsoever and is actively committing several crimes. Technically, those crimes have already been committed, so he has no reason to look at her like that.
She’s starting to wonder why everyone has so little faith in her.
Cypress just shrugs in lieu of a defense, and after another moment of consideration Jene seems to let it go.
He perks up, like his last line of questioning didn’t even happen, and says, “Oh yeah! So, you know that musician I really like?” He looks at her, but doesn’t wait for a response. “Limelight?” Again, doesn’t wait. “Well, I got some tickets for his next concert and, oh my gods, Bill said he would love to come along!”
Between the shiba-inu hybrid and snake hybrid, Jene somehow seems more like a dog than she does.
“Yeah?”
She lets the conversation play out, even though she doesn’t actually care enough to remember anything specific about it. She smiles, and it's bright and real and just a bit endeared.
When another meeting is called to the top ten, Cypress makes her way there confidently. She doesn’t grin like she’s responsible for it—that’d be too obvious—but she may or may not be acting a bit brighter than she’s ever been at the tower. More kid than hero.
Duke wastes no time. Usually, before all the important talk, he makes small talk and sort of eases into the big issues. Small updates about the other heroes or the city, new restaurants he’s been to lately, never gossip or anything like that, but he does give Ellie and Sam room for that kind of thing at least.
Today, he gets right to it. It seems like everyone else wants nothing more. There's a tension in the room Cypress isn’t entirely used to. It feels like the air around her is electric, there's an anticipation that usually only comes with big fights. If Cypress didn’t know why this meeting was called, she’d assume they were about to face off against The Misfits or something.
With a clap of his hands, right after Tia closes the door and fully sits down as the last hero there, Duke draws everyone’s attention to him. There's a grim look of annoyance on his face. His tail swishes behind him steadily, and he seems to take a moment longer than usual to speak.
Dramatic bird.
“We received the first—” technically second, but Cypress isn’t going to mention it “—email fourteen hours ago. With our help, the police have located seven of the bombs, but three are still missing.” Duke took a moment to look around the room.
Every hero at the table has a certain look about them. It makes them feel like actual heroes instead of a group of bratty young adults plus three old people. Bill is tinkering on something suspiciously bomb-shaped in his corner of the table, but there's a concentration there Cypress isn’t used to. The tinkering looks mindless, but still careful.
Even though he isn’t paying attention fully, Duke decides he’s listening enough. “Police tried to find Detonate, but he seems to have abandoned his apartment earlier today. There were signs that someone entered the apartment forcefully at some point, but nothing of a struggle.”
“Police are looking into it, but until they figure out more we should operate under the assumption that Detonate is still in action.”
Nobody looks worried about the situation, but Cypress still doesn’t like where this is going.
“For now,” Duke carries on, his tone all but confirming her suspicion, “I want all of you on stand-by. For those of you with patrols, Bypass will page you if anything comes up, for everyone else, enjoy your night but stay available.” Duke seems to finish with that. Before anyone can get up to move, Cypress speaks.
“Don’t you think this is a little overkill?”
Duke considers it for a second. “How so?”
“It’s one guy called Detonate, you really wanna twist your balls over that?”
Logan looks at her seriously, “Something more is going on. His apartment was broken into before we got him and three bombs are still missing.”
“Yeah but, like, that's the police’s job.” She shrugs even though she doesn’t say it like a question. “Why do we gotta be all on it?”
“Because we work in tandem with the police, Cy. If a supervillain is involved then so are we.” Everything Tia says sounds wise. Even though Cypress knows this is all unnecessary, she still finds herself believing the doctor.
“Dunno if this guy is supervillain material.” She says.
“City-wide-threat is supervillain enough.”
Everyone else in the room is listening to the conversation. She can tell some of the heroes want to go home. Tough. Too bad.
“Yeah but nothing serious is actually gonna happen.”
“We don’t know where the last three bombs are and we don’t know where Detonate is. For all we know, he could be preparing something worse.”
“He’s not.” Cypress groans.
Duke raises an eyebrow. “Don’t sound so sure of yourself.”
“But it’s true! The guy obviously just wants attention!” She turns to Bill, “How much damage could those things actually do?”
As an afterthought, “Like, actually. No doomsday talk included.”
He looks up from his bomb-shaped fidget toy and thinks. “Not much…” He says slowly, more in his own head figuring it out himself than actually answering Cypress. “Jee, I dunno Cy. They could still seriously hurt someone.”
“Yeah. But they won't." She rolls her eyes. She crosses her arms the moment Duke seems to realize something.
“What are you saying exactly, Cypress?”
She finally smiles, it's enough to draw Ellie into the conversation like a vulture.
“Nothing!” She sing-songs.
“Cypress.” There's a warning there, one she doesn’t really care to listen to.
Her hands raise in surrender anyways. It’s very obviously played up. “I’m just saying. The guy didn’t seem all that cool.” Duke seems to pick up what she’s implying before she even says it. “I mean, he said his mom thought his name was cool when I laughed at him for it. What a loser, right?”
Everyone is looking at her with varying levels of confusion and annoyance.
“What did you do.” It should’ve been a question, but Duke is resigned enough that it sounds like a normal statement instead.
“You’re the one that told me not to blow up a building!”
Resignation doesn’t seem all that resigned when there's horror mixed in.
“Explain.” Mr. No-Nonsense is back. Duke looks one wrong word from ramming his head into the wall.
“You said not to blow up a building. So I’m not.”
“Then why do y—”
“I’m blowing up three!”
There's a moment where nobody does anything. Cypress is grinning wildly, Duke is staring at her, and everyone else is holding their breath. Some of them are doing it in shock or anger, but she can tell some are just hanging on every word in hopes of something interesting happening.
Duke walks over to the windowed wall and stands there for a good minute, his whole body is stock-still. Even his tail is barely moving. Nobody says anything, she’s not even sure if anybody is breathing aside from her. The sun is setting and it’s a very nice view, but Cypress doesn’t think Duke’s actually taking any of it in. She wonders, briefly, if the glass is strong enough to take his head full-force.
Something shatters and before Cypress can process what, a rush of cold late-summer air hits her.
It looks like her question got answered. The glass is not strong enough for Duke’s head, let alone his entire body.
Everyone looks at her like she killed him.
“Relax. He can fly.” Cypress rolls her eyes.
“Yer an idiot.”
“Jee, thanks. Making me feel real good about this one Nessa.”
“Good.” Nessa huffs. There’s an edge to it Cypress doesn’t like.
“They’re not gonna do any damage,” Cypress starts, she waves her hand around like that proves she's right. Cause she is. “Bill said so. Everyone trusts Bill.”
Nessa Hums sharply. “That’s ‘cause Bill wouldn’t bomb a city outta spite.”
“Dunno. He could. I’m certainly enjoying it.”
The cow hybrid looks at her. She puts no effort in hiding her disappointment. Cypress just frowns at that. Sure, maybe she went a bit far, but she did put a lot of effort into it. It’s just a loud joke more than anything else. No one will get hurt and all it’s gonna do is start a small fire or something.
“Cy. This is serious.”
It’s Cypress’s turn to look at Nessa. “So am I.”
She gets the impression that was the worst possible answer.
But really, seriously, he didn’t need to make that comment. ‘Don’t blow anything up’ her ass! Joking is fine, Cypress loves a good joke! She likes the rapport she has with the others and she even likes being the butt of the joke if the situation calls for it! There’s a comfortable ease at that kind of thing. Duke didn’t say it easily, or like a joke. He said it like it might actually be a possibility.
She’s a hero, not a terrorist. He went and implied she was.
Nessa opens her mouth, probably to say something she thinks is true and important for Cypress to hear, but Cypress continues before Nessa can even start, “I know you’re all upset or whatever,” Nessa makes a face at that. “But I’m telling you, it’s fine. The bombs are weak, the villain was a loser working from home, and they’re not gonna go off in the middle of a busy street or some shit. Just a light bit of kaboom for the early morning commuters, yeah? Bit of a kick to start the day. A show not an attack.”
“You can’t be sure no one will get hurt, Cypress.” Jene makes his presence known. Of course he has to involve himself.
Nessa and Cypress are having a conversation on Cypress’s personal floor, Jene coming in is absolutely intentional and absolutely not what she wants. One goodie-two-shoes who just want extra brownie points from their annoying boss is enough, she doesn’t need two.
“Yeah! I can, actually!” Jene sits himself down on her couch like he has permission.
Neither Jene nor Nessa believe her. They’ve got it written all over their faces.
“Okay.” She says with finality and a lot more resolve than they deserve, “If even one person gets hurt then fire me or something.” They all know what that’d mean for Cypress. “Do it. I give you my permission, in fact, I encourage it. C’mon. That's how confident I am.”
She can tell from their faces, they won’t do shit, even if she’s wrong. Part of her is annoyed at that, she doesn’t know why.
“Nothing bad will happen, I quite literally stake my life on it.”
They leave her alone after that. They’re both unsure, but she’s made it very clear she’s dying on this hill (except she won’t die because it’s the right hill to be on).
Nobody really bothers her after that, she spends the rest of the night in relative peace. Except for Duke. Duke seems to sense when Cypress is about to leave, because he shows up all dramatically and, without really waiting, asks her to talk. It’s not really something she can turn down, but he pretends it is.
He sees her bag very clearly on her back, her office door very clearly closed behind her, and her mask and outfit very clearly tucked away where neither of them, or anyone else, will see them. He sits down, just like Jene did earlier, and waits expectantly.
She makes him wait a while. He takes that for what it is and stops trying to be all annoyingly parental.
“Gonna talk about it?”
“No.”
He sighs. “Cy, you’re a hero you can’t be—”
“I’m not paying for the window. That was your fault.”
He stops and looks at her for a moment, really looks at her. “Okay.”
That’s it?
“Okay?” She repeats.
He crosses his legs and puts his arm on the armrest, Cypress makes no move to sit down across from him, but she doesn’t try to leave either. The sun is fully set now, with the sky all yellow-black from smog. She can’t see any stars, even if she wanted to.
“Yeah. Okay.” He says. “You don’t have to pay for that, don’t even need to apologize for it.” She’s confused. She—Duke doesn’t… Actually, no. It’s Duke. Of course she doesn’t have to apologize.
“Detonate turned himself in a couple minutes ago.” His lips curl up. “Claims some evil mastermind threatened him and got the bombs. Funnily enough, he didn’t mention who that was. Any thoughts?”
She huffs out a laugh and lets her guard lower just a tiny bit. “Doesn’t take a mastermind to find him, he posed outside his apartment building tons on Instagram. Guess I—they just happened to know the area.” Cypress shrugs.
“Right.” He nods.
“When he first saw me he screamed and fell off his chair, it took ages to coax him back up and into giving me the locations.” Cypress drops the secrecy and just starts rambling, “You shoulda seen him. Guy was terrified with a capital T.”
“I was half convinced he was gonna run out the window.” Cypress says, then looks at Duke in realization. “Seems to be a bit of a theme today.”
He plays along. “Guess so.” A smile. “The wind was nice though, so it’s a good day for that kind of thing.”
“Really? Might have to give it a try.” She shrugs her bag off her shoulder and sets it on the ground next to her.
Duke doesn’t respond to that. He has a look on his face, the same one he wore the day she had that interview and became a hero. Back when he called her that dumb name and she only called him Bitch. Back before Emperor.
When he does speak, his words are soft.
“For what it’s worth, I didn’t actually think you’d blow anything up.”
“I know. Sorry for proving you wrong.” It means more to Cypress than it would to Duke, but he seems to understand what she means and gets up. She likes not needing to explain things, she thinks he probably does too. Before leaving her alone on her floor, he turns to look at her.
“Have a good night, Cypress.”
He walks into the elevator and she doesn’t see him for the rest of the night. Doesn’t see any heroes the rest of the night. Except some low-level one who she doesn’t know the name of. They don’t recognize her and her walk home is peaceful.
Duke was right, today is a good day to fall off a building. Chilly but not unpleasant. Like having a fan on in the middle of summer, except natural and a bit more polluted.
Cypress spends the rest of the night on her roof. Floof joins her for a bit at the start, but after a while he comes and goes. Once, he emerges from the fire escape with a blanket held in his mouth, another time with a bag of unopened chips. He never stays for more than a moment, though. Just long enough to swish his tail a bit before going back down. It makes her feel warm even after the day she’s had.
She stays outside wrapped in the blanket for the rest of the night. When the sun is just about to rise, three distant booms go off at the same time. Three clouds of smoke follow them.
It’s very pretty.
Cypress gets lulled to sleep by the sound of sirens and the sun barely warming her face.