25

Chapter Text

THU FEB 24

I had no idea what to think about Lisa. That girl pissed me off so much, but she really did seem to be in a shitty situation and needed help.

...and she did get me chocolate...

I'd formed a tiny bit of ice in the first cup, just to make it easier to drink immediately. Chugged half of it just to start the caffeine flowing, before slowing down to drink it as I sat there and thought about my life. I was a hero. I'd gone out into the world, and made a difference. I had a team, if I had to guess pretty soon I'd have a big team. If we even managed six capes total, that's still more than most groups had. Brockton was weird, having such a big Protectorate team, a huge gang like the E88, and the cultural oddity that was New Wave, all in the same city. Most cape gangs were like the ABB and the Merchants. Even in Brockton's history, you usually had gangs built around one strong cape like Marquis, or gangs that tended to have a few members and a heavy hitter, like the Teeth. They'd only had five or six capes while they were active in the bay, usually just relying on the Butcher's reputation and powers before they'd gotten kicked out by the Nine. The Nine, who usually didn't even have nine capes, most notable for being an absurd number of strong capes in one group, which led to them surviving long enough to warrant the rest of their reputation.

So yeah, even with four, or six, or however many capes my team wound up having, that's a lot of weight to throw around. If you don't count the Merchants, that means hero groups would outnumber big villain gangs, three-to-two. We could do this. We could fix the Bay. Build up momentum. Change the world.

...so why did I feel so shitty?

I was tired. I was worn out, emotionally more than physically, after Amy took most of my exhaustion away. I wanted to believe it was just that, but I couldn't shake the feeling that it wasn't. Like I was overreaching, overstepping, like everything was going to come crumbling down. I felt like I wasn't ready, like I'd jumped in too deep, people were going to start relying on me, and I'd just let them down.

It was stupid. I knew it was stupid. I was strong, resilient, enduring. I'd survived Winslow, I could do anything. ...but it still felt like a lie. I cleared my mind, pushed the feelings away. I could deal with them later. A large part of me wanted to just head home and crawl into bed, but I knew I'd just wallow if I did that. I'd just stay up in bed, thinking myself into negative spirals again, and wind up wasting the rest of the day. As long as I went to school, I'd have something else to think about. Something else to do to take my mind off things. I could sleep when I was tired enough to sleep, not just stew drowsily in my mood. That decided, I started walking to school. Not running, very intentionally walking. Just because I knew going to school was better than going home didn't mean I was excited for it. I was already missing first period, and with my slow walk I'd probably get there around when second started. I'd just skip that, too. Using the time to take my shower without rushing, relax a bit. Then I could deal with the rest of my day.

I sipped at the second of the cups on my way. They were all basically hot chocolate with a shot of espresso, which I liked better than most coffee. I'd have to remember, for next time. I wasn't sold on drinking in the shower, like Lisa'd implied, but it was nice knowing I wouldn't run out.

That led my thoughts back to Lisa, and I sighed. Villains. Kids doing their own thing, people trying to get by, doing the wrong thing for the right reasons... they were a mistake. A whole host of mistakes. Bitch was the PRT's mistake. They'd made a villain out of a scared, confused girl. Grue made his own mistakes, I felt. Pride or arrogance, making him lose sight of what was important. Lisa could have joined a team, gotten support from somewhere. I had a feeling she wasn't from Brockton, so she'd moved around. Surely there were hero or rogue groups she could have joined up with, to prevent this whole Coil situation. Instead she'd run around on her own, stealing and trusting her power to get by, cocksure no one could outsmart her. It made me feel like this was the inevitable conclusion of a choice she'd made for herself.

I had no idea who'd messed up in Regent's life, but felt pretty safe blaming his dad, whoever that was. It felt a little silly to expect moral choices from a poorly raised sociopath, which was the impression I'd gotten from Lisa's description. Him, I wasn't sure I could help.

The others, I wasn't sure I should help. They weren't my mistakes. They weren't my kids, weren't my team, but there was a nagging thought that at least some of them could be, if I tried hard enough. I wanted to help them, give them the chance to be better people. I wanted fewer villains in the world. More heroes. More friends.

I shut my eyes tightly and sighed. I already had more friends now than I'd ever had before. Even before Winslow, before Emma turned on me, it'd really just been her. She'd been the center of my life. She was...

My head shook violently to clear that train of thought. It didn't matter now. She was gone, and I was a different person. That me was dead. My Emma was dead.

---

I luxuriated in the water, Arcadia's newer boilers hitting temperatures that put Winslow's to shame. It didn't have the wait to heat up at home, or the worry our old water heater would run out, or finally die and need replacing. Things were simpler here. Better. I could scrub and scrub, stripping off the grime and stress both. I took the time to wash my hair, something I never gave myself at school these days, even though I'd had shampoo and conditioner just in case. Habits from Winslow, to always be prepared.

I'd had almost an hour, and still used most of it. I felt a lot better, feeling clean and wandering the halls, sipping the third of the drinks Lisa's gotten me. I'd reheated it with my powers, spending a couple minutes trying to figure out how to do it with waterbending, only to realize it was easier with fire for some reason. I was tired though, and just shrugged and accepted it. I had a steamy drink again, so I was happy.

I was heading upstairs to meet Amy, looking for her in the senior classrooms as I went. I knew roughly where she'd be, since I'd found her coming down to or up from her third period often enough. Some remedial biology she needed to finish up, her power making the actual textbook learning difficult. She likened it to the saying that the better you were at chess, the worse you were at checkers, because the board was the same. She'd needed to learn a few mental tricks to make things click, but by then she'd already taken the class. They stuck her in the AP class with the sophomore honors students to replace her grade, and she was doing well enough to earn her stay, but she was a little sore it was even a thing.

After finding Amy, I waited out the last few minutes before the bell in the hall outside. I took the time to heat the last of the drinks, while no one was around to notice. When the bell rang, the seniors started filing out of class, many of them eyeing me curiously, or staring hungrily at the disposable coffee cups in my hands. Of all the years, the seniors had the fewest absentees today. This made sense to me, they were the ones generally most worried about their grades and futures, but I was still surprised how many were here. If this were Winslow, I'd expect a full quarter to a third of the students to not bother showing up. While Arcadia had absences on the other hand, I think the classes hit the hardest only had four or five empty desks each.

Amy was one of the last people out, having been slow to pack up, and being stalled at her desk by a few gossipers from the look of things. I saw her answering a couple things, but she didn't feel great and was probably deflecting. When she left the room, the only ones left were the ones trailing after her like birds following someone spreading crumbs. She caught sight of me and made her way over, eyes locked on the cups in my hands. The others following her broke off for various reasons. One of them sneered at me a little, but didn't kick up a fuss.

She took the cup I offered her, sniffing at it and then taking a sip, her eyes closing as she hummed with pleasure. "I love you." She mumbled, staring into the cup, before her eyes tracked up to mine. She blushed a little, having been caught in her private chocolate tryst. "Know that of all the people at this school to whom I am not related, I hate you the least." She said to me.

I snorted. "I don't hate you too, Amy." I nodded my head down the hall, and she followed as I led the way down to our classes. "How have you been? I wound up skipping a bit to shower and get coffee."

She grumbled in response. "I wish I could skip, but I'd never get away with it." She muttered terrible things about her mother, and I left her to it. At the very least it kept her animated. A few people said hello, including some of the girls from last Friday, but no one actually stopped us on our way downstairs. I'm pretty sure sticking by her left everyone else thinking she was busy, and thus not available to pester.

The chatter around us was more subdued than normal considering what'd happened last night, but it still made our comparative silence feel oppressive. "So, how's biology going?" I asked to fill the void.

She tensed, claws gripping at her cup. "Oh, it's fine." She muttered. "I know all the material, I have first-hand experience, and it's not like I didn't already have a passing grade or anything." Her words rapidly rose to a hiss. I knew she wasn't mad at me, but she was still pretty intense. A few moments later, she snapped, stopping in the middle of the hallway and throwing her hands up, her cup and clawed hand on either side of her head. "I had a C!" She roared at the ceiling. I scooted around in front of her in the gap in the mass of humanity cluttering the hallway her outburst had caused. She was still tired and frustrated, and I'd managed to unwittingly trigger a need to vent. "I still think Carol just didn't want me to have a free period. 'What about medical school, Amy? You have good Chemistry scores, Amy! You need to bring up all your medical-related grades, Amy! Think of your future, Amy!' ugh!"

A couple other students snickered as they passed, but most of them were wary of any sort of public outburst. I had to admit though, from the outside it did sound like ordinary griping about an overbearing parent. "At least it's easy, right? You could do with a good zone-out period."

Her slight hyperventilation petered out into a sigh. "Yeah, yeah. At least Thurston doesn't call on me anymore. Only so many times the super-nerds ask about 'live demonstrations' or 'expert opinions' or 'parahuman perspectives' before it gets old, even for him." Mr. Thurston was a portly, inquisitive sort of teacher that according to rumor, liked promoting innovative thought and curiosity in his students. He sounded like a less-shitty Mr. Gladly, but I was probably being unfair because I didn't have him for any of my classes.

"Everything else been okay, though?" We started moving a little, since the cleared space was closing in again.

She gave me a 'so-so' hand waggle. "Pretty normal day after stuff." She paused to think on it. "Just assholes trying to chat me up because they think there's some scoop to be had, or people thinking I need consoling for my ordeal like I was actually in the fight or something... and then there's the people who don't feel safe, trying to cluster up around a 'hero' because it makes them feel better..." She sighed, rubbing her face. "I don't want to rip their throats out for it, but it gets old fast."

"I'm sorry." I muttered the platitude, not sure what else I could say.

Amy shrugged. "Ehh, is what it is." She sounded tired, and felt drained and apathetic again. We'd made it to her class though. "See you at lunch?"

I nodded and agreed, letting her slip into the classroom before I headed off to mine. I kept an eye on her throughout the period, watching her mostly resting and dozing. When the change to fourth period rolled around, I debated walking her to that too, but didn't want to feel too clingy. She had the same sort of gaggle trying to talk to her, but it helped they were different years and split off when they got into the hall. It was perhaps a touch creepy to spend so much of my attention watching my friend, but I wasn't having any trouble keeping up with the lessons. When the class let out, I made sure to be one of the first out the door. Amy was being hounded by classmates looking to follow her to lunch, and I wanted to head that off. I took a few deep breaths, wondering how to handle this, before focusing on trying to channel my old middle school chatterbox self.

"Amy!" I called, bustling into their circle and addressing the others. "I'm sorry, we had plans. See you all later?" I gathered up Amy and bundled her along with my momentum. "Sorry, got to go, bye!" I was edging into hyperventilating the whole time I was pulling Amy down the hall with me. "Oh god, how did I used to do that?" I groused, the nervous energy pouring out and leaving me feeling drained.

"...the hell?" Amy muttered, confused and amused.

"Didn't want to talk to them." I said, not bothering to elaborate. "Gotta' figure out what to do for lunch, now."

Amy heaved a groan at the thought. "Could always go out. Get food poisoning so I don't have to come back." She sounded oddly hopeful at the thought. "If you shot me, we could blame it on a gang or something?"

I whapped the back of her head. "Bad Amy." She glared and stuck her tongue out at me. I chuckled, but kept thinking. We could go out, there were a few restaurants nearby who did most of their business on Arcadia's lunch hours, but we'd probably have to have me run us to somewhere on the Boardwalk to get any peace. We could head outside and claim our bench if I wiped the water off with my hoodie. We could try to just deflect everything to Vicky by sitting at her table, but that wouldn't solve the problem. Then I noticed someone staying behind in a room nearby. "I have an idea." She gave me a curious grunt, to which I replied, "Come on, let's get our lunches, just follow me."

We made our way down, hopping into the same line to stick together and try to look like we were chatting so people would leave Amy alone. I wound up getting her to talk about some of the books she was looking into lately, just to keep the words flowing. When we got to the end, we managed to hit a pair of free pay stations to weigh our food and scan our drinks and ID cards, before I lead her straight to the doors back into the school.

Amy was confused, but followed along anyway. I led her up the stairs, and back into one of the senior classrooms. I knocked on the cracked-open door, catching Tracy's attention. "Hey, you mind some company?" Her wide startled eyes darted between me and Amy, forgetting entirely to chew the food in her mouth. "Amy's tired of the crowds, and it's quiet here."

Tracy glanced to the side to think for a moment, before she continued chewing with a nod. "That would be fine." She said once her mouth was clear. "I don't have any problem with it." We made our way over and she glanced between us, her emotions flickering before settling on a rough mix of compassionate sadness. "I'm sorry, high school isn't very kind to celebrities, especially in times like these."

Amy shrugged as she pulled up a seat. "I'm used to it, don't worry about it."

Her sadness turned somewhat sharper as she continued. "I'd like to think I understand, but I've never really mattered outside of school." She shook her head. Amy was mostly ignoring her, but I could feel her irritation building. "The scale really doesn't compare. I'm glad you're taking the time to take care of yourself." Amy was nearly grumbling by now. Tracy turned to me with a nod. "And I'm glad that you have Taylor."

Amy choked a little, turning to glare at the redhead, who chuckled quietly. I felt like I was missing something. At first I'd been worried I'd messed up bringing Amy here, but now I had to wonder if they knew each other. They were both seniors after all, they had to have shared a class or two at some point.

I decided to cut in, just in case I was misreading things. "I'm glad to help. Hey, are we seeing you Friday? I forgot to ask about your schedule for things like basketball practice, and games, and..." I trailed off.

She chuckled, then fell into a lecturing tone to explain. "Oh, don't worry. Most of the teams have their mandatory practice sometime over the weekend, because club things are usually weekdays. Girls' basketball is Saturday afternoon. The coaches oversee optional practice every day though, and... uhh..." She trailed off shyly, her emotions dipping darkly into anxiety and shame. "We're supposed to attend at least two a week to keep our spots on the team, but..." Her mouth opened and closed a few times, trying to find the right words. "Coach, she'd... have a hard time justifying benching me."

"So you get a few extra days off." Amy said, shrugging as she started digging at her food. "Perks of being tall, right?"

Tracy's eyes narrowed, and her emotions flashed briefly into a roiling cauldron of loathing before it seemed to collapse into frustration, sadness, anxiety and half a dozen other emotions I was having trouble making out. "I suppose so." She muttered, not feeling like she agreed at all.

I liked Tracy, but her emotions were all over the place. It made me worry about her, something had to be wrong, but I couldn't figure out what it might be. "So what do you do with the time, then?"

She froze, giving me a wide-eyed deer-in-headlights startled stare for a moment. Her eyes darted between us before she found her voice. "I do... hobbies."

Amy scoffed. "We're not gonna' tattle on you for skipping out to ride your boyfriend, or whatever."

Tracy ground her teeth a bit, stabbing her fork a little more forcefully into her tupperware full of salad greens. "Don't have a boyfriend." She muttered.

"Girlfriend?" Amy asked offhandedly, before she shook her head and shrugged. "Nah, it doesn't matter. If you weren't one of the straightest laces in this school I'd be worried." She pointed her fork at the redhead, swirling it in the air a bit. "But you're almost as bad as Taylor is, there."

Tracy blushed and went back to nibbling her rabbit food. "Yeah, I was just trying to make conversation, is all." I said, trying to coax her out of her mood. "Have you been reading or watching anything lately?"

Lunch was a much lighter affair after that, more discussing her and my mutual lack of entertainment media hobbies, before Amy started making fun of us by recommending several of the spicier titles she'd partaken of lately. I had to admit, Tracy was pretty cute when she was blushing and sputtering. I could see why she was popular, despite being a bit standoffish.

We finished our food and said our goodbyes, Amy and I heading down to turn in our trays. "Hey, you.. knew Tracy before, right?" Amy nodded and gave an affirmative. "Has she always been…?"

"A barely thawed salmon?" She rolled her eyes. "Pretty much. She's not a bad person, just… ugh." She shook her head. "She's been better since Kara adopted her a couple years back." She was quiet for a while. "I think… she doesn't like Vicky's aura. They used to be friends, on the basketball team together, but Vicky quit after she got powers. I haven't seen them together since. And I'm usually around Vicky, so…"

"Ah." She would've drifted away from Amy too, then. "Thanks for telling me."

Amy gave me a tired hum I chose to interpret as 'you're welcome', and the rest of the trip was made in comfortable silence. We had to dodge or deflect a few people who wanted to chat once we were there, both on the way in and back out. It was only after we got to the stairs that I felt okay letting Amy wander off on her own again. She kept going up while I stopped at the second floor to head to my own class.

I kept an eye on her for the rest of the day. She steadily got more tired, cranky, and zombie-like over the next few hours. It was enough that by the end, only a couple people were brave enough to risk talking to her. I met her on the stairs, where she hummed a noise of vague greeting, and took to escorting her out. I was starting to get a little worried that she was going to just fall over soon. Luckily Vicky met us at the entrance, and bundled her sister up to fly home and get some sleep. Before she left, she mouthed 'thank you' when Amy couldn't see it, and I nodded back. She loved her sister, and if I had to guess, appreciated that I'd kept Amy busy at lunch and kept an eye on her while Vicky herself was off at the university.

With that, I headed straight home, hopping on the bus and taking my time walking after I got to my stop. My mind wandered, and I let it. Worrying about Canberra, the Undersiders, Lisa, Tracy… I had a lot on my mind, and not much idea what to do about them. When I got closer to home, I sighed. I'd also forgotten that Gram was in town, as evidenced by the car and driver in our driveway, and the woman herself waiting in the house while dad puttered around, apparently working on dinner.

I gave the driver an awkward wave as I trudged past her to my doom. My eyes darted briefly over the room, almost exactly as I left it this morning, save the television flickering silently, and the old woman in the padded seat across the room. Gram was poised rather well to see me as I came in from where she was seated. She looked up from a rather large tablet computer, pinning me with a distinctly unimpressed stare. "Hey, Gram." I muttered, slipping my bag off and setting it down by the couch.