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writer-of-various · 8 months

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ɪ'ʟʟ ꜰɪɴᴅ ʏᴏᴜ, ʀᴜᴅʏ

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪɪ : ʟᴏᴠᴇ ɪꜱ ᴀ ᴛᴏᴡᴇʀ ᴡʜᴇʀᴇ ᴀʟʟ ᴏꜰ ᴜꜱ ᴄᴀɴ ʟɪᴠᴇ

"We used all types of methods to break the subject. Waterboarding, dissociation, trauma, interrogation, you name it, we did it. [Redacted] found something, an American form of brainwashing that is similar to Russian sleeper agents. MK Ultra."

– Russell, A.

February 15, 2023

1245

"Fuck!" Rudy screams as another shock of electricity pierces through him, his arms twitching against the metal restraints holding him down. He breathes heavily, glaring weakly at the Shadows surrounding him, bracing himself when the object of his torture nears his right thigh when the metal door slams open and Graves walks in, his eyes narrowed before he nods at his men and they start packing up their "interrogation" equipment. Rudy lets himself relax against the metal bed, his body feeling like it is melting and he is so tired but he watches wearily as Graves walks over to him and crosses his arms over his chest.

"You gonna talk now, Rudy?" Graves questions, and Rudy feels disgusted at how the man says his name. 'Rudy' is only for his closest and most trusted friends to call him, Alejandro was the first and has been addressing him since. Graves did call him that when they worked together, when they spent nights together, but the man lost all his trust and love, he lost that privilege.

"Don't call me that, pendejo." He growls out, barely flinching when the slap comes, but the effects of it still struck him like all the other times he's been backhanded and punched.

"I've tried a lot of things in only what, over 5 days? You are loyal, I'll give you that, Rudy, but you're loyal to the wrong people, darling. So, I'm going to ask you one more time before I cross a line that we can never step back over. Are you going to talk?" Graves looks at Rudy, sky blue meeting mocha brown, and Rudy hopes he's hiding the fear that's crawling up his spine well.

"You can fucking do anything, Graves, but I won't talk. You passed the line of ethical and unethical when you touched me in the wrong places. You're a dead motherfucker when I get out." Rudy hisses, and Graves sighs, shaking his head and stepping away from Rudy, his eyes sad and...was that guilt? The fear grew into panic and Rudy watched with wide eyes as Graves made a gesture and two Shadows left for a brief moment before stepping back inside, wheeling in a cart full of strange instruments but one thing stuck out like a sore thumb: a syringe filled with some sort of tanish colored liquid. Graves slipped on a pair of medical gloves, grabbing the syringe and putting on a long and sharp needle that had Rudy reeling back.

"Wh-what the fuck is that? Graves? Graves! Phillip–" Rudy starts screaming as the needle pierces through his arm, barely noticing the Shadows setting up an IV bag and another Shadow bringing in a medical bag and AED. One particular Shadow stood by Graves' side, holding up a stack of papers paperclipped together, his eyes watching as Rudy failed around before his movements grew languid and weak, his pupils dilating and skin going pale.

"You sure this is going to work, boss?" The Shadow asks, and Graves nods, his stare turning hard.

"It worked on someone before." Was all he said before getting to work.

Rudy woke with a start, blinking rapidly as he looked around the room, trying to take in his surroundings. A loud explosion startles him, forcing him to quickly scramble to his feet, and that's when he notices the debris and bullet shells and everything around him that screams war.

"Rook, there you are!" A voice with a southern accent calls out and Rudy looks over, seeing a familiar man with light brown hair and bright blue eyes. "You alright, darling? Those fuckers didn't hurt you too bad, right?"

Rudy looks down at his body, seeing a black uniform on him, no visible injuries or any pain so he shakes his head, looking back up at the man. Phillip Graves, his mind supplies helpfully and he bites his bottom lip.

"Graves?" He whispers, wincing at how his voice cracked and the man smiles at him, something soft and soothing.

"I'm here, Rudy. I'm here. Come on, we have a job to do." With those words, white flashes against Rudy's vision and he screams at the intensity of it, his head pounding and he tries blocking his eyes but couldn't. It didn't last long though, the light faded and when he opened his eyes (were they closed this whole time?) he saw that he was in a dimly lit room, looking down and seeing he was shirtless and had bruises and cuts littering all over his fair skin. A large metal blue door opens and a tall man walks in, dark brown hair swept back and dark brown eyes narrowing on him, sending shivers down his spine.

"Rudy, why are you making me hurt you? Why can't you just tell me where those filthy gringos are?" Alejandro Vargas (what, how did he know this man's name?) growls out, and Rudy flinches when a hand lands on his shoulder, slowly sliding down his chest and the touch itself makes his stomach churn in disgust.

"You're a monster, Ale" Rudy whispers, and the dark gleam in Alejandro's eyes, the way his lips curled up in a sick smile, should have been warning signs for what is to come. He knew he had to have trusted Alejandro Vargas at one point, but now these memories flashed through his mind, these fragments he wanted gone now showing up in big pictures. Alejandro touched him, in ways that broke Rudy and his dignity.

But Phillip Graves returns, he slammed through that blue metal door and forced Alejandro off of him, the searing pain that came forcing a cry out of Rudy, who breathes heavily and is oblivious to the waterfall of tears trailing down his face. Graves, after knocking out the colonel cold, came to his rescue, cutting the restraints and lifting him up, throwing his jacket over him.

"I got you, Rook. I got you. We have a job to do." The flashing light came back, and Rudy let it wash over him this time, his eyelids squeezing shut, but this time he felt everything around him. The coldness affects his temperature, the hands on his body, and the exclaims over his head. He reopened his eyes, finding himself in what looked like a hospital room, his eyes darting everywhere before landing on the man standing beside his bed. Graves.

"Hey Rook, you okay?" Graves asks softly, and Rudy nods, confusion written across his face. He looks out the window, the curtain pulled back to allow the daylight to shine through, before returning his gaze back to Graves, eyebrows pinched together.

"Where am I?" He questions, watching as Graves looked at him with some sort of intensity before smiling, standing up and moving over to release the leather cuffs holding Rudy down.

"Infirmary. You got hurt on a mission, doctors say it could have been a bad concussion that made you act up. You tried hurting yourself so we had to restrain you for safety, I didn't like it but I couldn't bear to see you hurt yourself." Graves answers, voice full of honesty and Rudy nods.

"I...I can't remember anything. Just you, I think." He says sheepishly and Graves' head snaps up quick, blue eyes searching his own before his lips turned down in a frown.

"You were hit on your temple with a heavy gun, then beaten by the enemy. Head injury, they said you might wake up with slight amnesia and to just watch you closely. Don't worry, darling, I'll help you get that smart brain working again." Graves says, helping Rudy sit up in the hospital bed. Rudy mumbles a quiet thanks, trying to stand but his legs felt so shaky he would have fell if not for Graves catching him in time.

"Am...am I not going to be able to work?" Rudy asks, feeling relieved when Graves shakes his head, a reassuring smile replacing that frown.

"You should be back on the field in less than a month, but for now it's bed rest and light paperwork. We are keeping low for a bit anyways, we barely escaped the last mission. We have a safehouse near the base, my trusted men are waiting there for us." Graves turns around and goes over to the table at the end of the end, grabbing a clear plastic bag and handing it to Rudy. "These are your clothes, I washed them for you. Get ready and we'll head out."

Rudy nods, letting the man help him to the bathroom before shutting the door, inspecting his reflection in the mirror. He tries to recall any memories but everything is blurry or seemingly nonexistent, and he knows he can trust Graves to help him regain those memories. As he removes the hospital gown and begins putting on his own clothes, he tries naming the basic stuff. His name?

...What is his name? Graves calls him Rudy, and in his dreams he also called him Rook. But his legal name? He can guess for some first names, but anything else is blacked out. Okay, birth date, or age? Still nothing. Family, friends? Nope.

Rudy growls out in frustration, slamming his hands down on the counter, trying to blink away the pressure building up behind his eyelids. With shaky hands, he opens the bathroom door and walks out, smiling at the sight of Graves waiting for him. He can assume he and Graves were a thing, with his dreams and how the man calls his darling. Unless nothing happened between them and he's overthinking, any memories he has had have been swiped away, taken away ruthlessly, leaving him a shell of who he used to be.

"Come on, let's go home." Graves wraps a strong arm around his waist and they walk out together.

The ride to the safehouse was quiet, something Rudy bathed in as he pondered over millions of unanswered questions going through his head, his fingers fidgeting with one another in a coping manner. Graves watched him from the corner of his eye, his lips twitching as he wanted to grin so badly at his accomplishment, but he kept his cool, he threw on the stoic expression and ran through the notes he embedded in his memory.

"Are you hungry? I can text of the guys and have them make you something." Graves finally speaks, breaking Rudy out of his inner turmoil. The younger man hesitantly nods, forcing his fingers to stop moving and rest on his thighs, a small smile making its way on his face.

"Yeah, that's fine. Graves?" He turns slightly in his seat, his face heating up when the man gives a small hum. "I...I know this is going to sound weird but...are we together? Like, are we a couple?"

Graves looks over at him and smiles, something charming and definitely made Rudy's blush darken. "We are. We've been together for four years now, I saved you from an asshole."

"Alejandro Vargas?" Rudy says it like a question, almost flinching when Graves stops the car and turns to look at him in his seat.

"Yeah, how did you know?" Graves gives him a look, something dark in his bright eyes, and Rudy takes a deep breath.

"I, I think I was having flashbacks when I was asleep. I dreamt of waking up in some sort of battlefield, you were there, saying something about me being okay and if the enemy got me. Then it changed, I was...I was restrained and Alejandro walked in this room, saying some weird things. He..." Rudy paused, hands starting to shake again as the memory plays in his mind, those rough hands gripping his hips, his cries falling on ignorant ears as the man thrusted inside of him, no prep or care– but Rudy doesn't want to call it what it is.

"Colonel Vargas is a bad man, Rudy. He doesn't give a shit about his unit or you. We worked with you when you were his second in command, we did some joint work due to a cartel problem. I noticed the way he strung you around like a puppet, you had no freedom and you looked so afraid. I recruited you to become my international SIC, he grew mad and it's when he found out he was working for the cartel that whole time. He locked you up somewhere and I refused to leave, I knew I had to help you escape. I'm happy I did, you're the best thing that has ever happened to me." Graves leans forward and kisses him, Rudy's eyes widening before he returns it shyly, his lips moving a bit inexperienced but Graves didn't mind. He just knew everything was going just how he wanted. Just how the notes said it would go.

"We should get home soon, I want you to eat a meal and get some more rest." Graves says at last, restarting the car and continuing to drive. Rudy stares out the window, getting lost in his thoughts. It's not long before Graves pulls up in a driveway, parking the car and getting out, looking over to Rudy and seeing he was in a trance. With a sigh, he walks to the passenger side and opens the door, gently shaking Rudy, smiling when the younger man looks at him and nods, getting out of the car.

"Welcome home, Rudy." Graves says, guiding him inside the house, and Rudy is amazed with what he sees. There were a handful of soldiers walking around, some talking loudly and others sitting on a couch and cleaning their weapons. Rudy follows Graves further inside the house, going up the stairs to the second floor and seeing a bunch of rooms. "Since I have to keep a close eye on you, we'll be sharing a room for now."

"Oh, okay" Rudy says softly, about to step into the room when a sudden headache hits him. It pounded against his head, his vision going blurry and nausea made his stomach churn uncomfortably and his mouth to water. "Graves..." He mumbles, stumbling forward and Graves catches him, eyes wide as he drags him to the king sized bed and lays him on it.

"Oz, Mila!" He shouts, listening to the incoherent mumbling of Rudy, his heart pounding hard as the smaller man begins to seize. Mila runs in, Oz right behind her carrying a bag and they storm over, the man opening the bag and grabbing a syringe.

"Jesus Christ. Sir, I don't think this is a good idea" Mila's voice is shaky as she watches with wide eyes as Oz hands the syringe over to Graves who injects the substance into Rudy. The seizing stopped and two medics ran in, checking his vitals and nodding at Graves when they deemed he was stable. Oz packs up the supplies and Graves turns to her, his features morphed into a sharp glare.

"You're a Shadow, Mila. This is for our, and his, own good." Is all he says before ushering them out, slamming his door shut and Mila's brow furrowed together. None of this was normal, and as she walks off to find Oz, an uneasy feeling sits in her gut. Who the hell is Rudy, and why did her commander seem so obsessed with the man?

4 hours later

"Good morning, sweetheart" Graves sings when Rudy regains consciousness, those beautiful mocha brown eyes meeting his, that same look of confusion written across his soft face.

"Graves? ¿Qué pasó?" Rudy slurs out and Graves curses mentally, looking around the room for his bag and moving to grab it. He unzips it and takes out a folder, flipping it open and glancing through the notes in there, finding the one he wanted and sighing in disappointment.

"Rook, look at me." He orders, voice turning hard and Rudy sits up, looking at him with some naivety it did something to Graves' body. "No more Spanish, you left that culture behind. You work for me, remember? English only."

Rudy nods, dazed but he understands what his commander is asking of him. "Yes. What happened?"

"You knocked out, I guess you still have a while to recover. It's fine, babe, you'll be up and running in time." Graves says with a fake grin, throwing the folder on his desk and walking over to Rudy. He caresses the drugged man's face, sliding his thumb into his mouth and feeling around the wet heat. He pushes Rudy back against the bed, removing that signature grey hoodie and the shirt underneath it, easily slapping away Rudy's hands that tried pushing him off. He moves fast, undressing both of them, leaning over to open the upper drawer of his nightstand and grabbing the small bottle of lube he has. He squirts some on his fingers, lathering it around before placing them in front of Rudy's entrance, sliding the first digit in. Rudy whines, something full of discomfort and pain, and Graves grunts.

"Fuck baby, you're so tight and wet and I barely fucking touched you." Graves taunts, sliding another finger in and scissoring the sergeant major, smiling when the other's body began to react to the pleasure. Rudy hums, small mewls leaving his plump lips and Graves leans down to capture them in a passionate kiss. He groans into the kiss, thrusting his fingers in and out, not caring that the pleasure Rudy felt began to turn into a dull pain, his lips parting as he starts whimpering in pain.

"G-graves...it hurts" He mumbles, but the commander ignores him, sliding his fingers out and replacing it with his hard dick. He slams in, no mercy or care, simply taking Rudy for his own pleasure. The screams Rudy let out were twisted in his mind, he believed it was all pleasure and lust but Rudy's drugged and destroyed mind began to feel confused and scared. "Graves, stop!"

The slap that came startles him into submission, tears falling from his eyes and Graves halts his movements and glares down at him.

"I know you are confused, Rudy, but you are mine. I will fuck you whenever I want to, I will touch you whenever I want to, you are my sweet lover and you will obey me!" Graves growls and Rudy nods rapidly, too scared to ask a question. Graves seems content with this and continues, Rudy laying there and taking it. He bites his bottom lip so his pained noises don't escape, afraid the older man wouldn't want him to talk. Graves let it slide for now, coming and sliding out of Rudy, heading off to his bathroom to shower.

Rudy continues to lay there, quietly sobbing as his body aches and feels so weird. But no anger was appointed to Graves. He was angry at himself for not being a good boyfriend, for being so broken.

How could Graves still love him when he forgot who he is?

#rook is rudy's alias #phillip graves x rodolfo parra #rodolfo parra #phillip graves #call of duty #writer of various' works #cod modern warfare #all warnings are on ao3 #violence/psychological torture/noncon

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robininthelabyrinth · 11 months

Text

The Other Mountain - ao3 - Chapter 1

Pairing: Lan Qiren/Wen Ruohan

Warning Tags on Ao3

Summary: Lan Qiren still couldn’t quite bring himself to believe it.

He was married.

He had a wife.

That wife was Wen Ruohan.

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A/N: Title from the idiom “The other mountain’s stone can polish jade” (他山之石，可以攻玉), meaning improving yourself through external criticism or accepting advice from others will help you overcome your shortcomings.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Wangji was missing.

Wangji was missing, and Lan Qiren was frantic with worry. Lan Wangji had always been a solemn child, perhaps too solemn for a six-year-old, and he had always adhered firmly to routine, the way Lan Qiren did. But now he was nowhere to be found, not in his rooms, not in the classroom, not in the training yards, the Library Pavilion…he was simply gone!

Not that Lan Qiren could blame him for running away.

Not when –

Lan Qiren had to pause in his search through the corners of the Library Pavilion and close his eyes, his chest abruptly too tight for no physical reason at all.

Everything was different now.

The moment it had all changed had been viscerally seared into his brain, every single sensation so clear that Lan Qiren needed only to close his eyes to be back there at once. Had no choice but to be back there, every time he did, whether he wanted to or not. He could feel his shoulders suddenly too-tight and too-heavy, could feel his nose filled with the damp smell of dirt and death that had permeated the room, his throat choked by the stuffy heat of it, all the windows closed…

His ears ringing, his breath too fast. His entire body frozen with sudden inextricable tension.

And the blood, of course.

There had been so much blood.

Wangji had not seen the blood, at least, and for that Lan Qiren was deeply thankful. He could not even imagine his little nephew’s reaction to such a thing – not his Wangji, who had always been so rigid, so formal, so distressed when things did not happen as they should…he’d never been especially good at dealing with change. The Lan sect’s teachings counseled acceptance of change, the recognition that it was inevitable, but Wangji had always been deeply suspicious of it.

In that way, he was…a little too much like his uncle.

Change had never been good for Lan Qiren, either, not in his whole life.

His mother’s too-early death, his father’s decline, his brother’s love and his decision to abandon his duties to save his accused murderess of a wife – it was all the same, all bad, every change a change for the worse. Every time something changed, he was forced to change with it, and never into anything he wanted. He’d been so young, so painfully inexperienced and immature, when he’d been forced to start taking over sect matters, and he hadn’t wanted any of it. He hadn’t wanted to spend his time in the confusing and unpleasant marsh of politics. He hadn’t wanted to become the acting sect leader.

He certainly hadn’t wanted to be a father.

Lan Qiren loved his nephews, he did, but at the same time…no, he hadn’t wanted to be a father.

And that was what he was to them, really, though he’d never been granted the title and had been scrupulous about never doing anything to indicate he might deserve it, even when he felt inside that perhaps he might. As usual, he’d gotten all the duties and none of the benefits, and all the months he’d had of foreknowledge of his nephews’ arrival had somehow still been utterly insufficient to prepare him to take care of two small children.

He’d never wanted any of it.

Lan Qiren hadn’t wanted the years of sleepless nights, using one hand to write out sect correspondence by candlelight and the other to comfort sleeping infants that no one else could settle, that he didn’t dare entrust to anyone else for too long for fear that they would never be returned to him. He hadn’t wanted to be burdened with so much responsibility, always worrying about them, always chasing after them, always thinking of them, having to keep in mind two other schedules other than his own, always having to accommodate them. He hadn’t wanted to endure long and agonizing waits, filled with anxiety – raising children seemed like nothing but waiting, sometimes. First waiting for them to be born from a woman he barely knew, then waiting for them to fall asleep, waiting for them to heal after an illness, waiting for them to grow up…

Lan Qiren hadn’t wanted to have to figure out how to parent a child, two children, when he felt as though he were still barely old enough to figure out how to behave properly himself.

For them, Lan Qiren had had to learn to balance love and discipline, simultaneously worrying that too much kindness and laxity would hurt them in the future and that too much strictness and censure would hurt them in the present. He’d never been sure which one to pick and he had been convinced every time that he’d picked the wrong one. He’d had to try to manage the frustration and self-hatred that came with raising his two nephews, the way he constantly questioned and second-guessed himself, the guilt that came with every decision he made for them because there was no one else available to make them.

He had been constantly dogged with the feeling that he wasn’t enough.

That he could never be enough.

Lan Qiren had at one point found himself regularly waking up in the middle of the night, utterly terrified. Terrified that he was ruining these children – terrified that they would grow up and one day realize that Lan Qiren was not only inept but inadequate, and grow to resent him in the same way that he’d grown to resent his own father, in time.

Lan Qiren’s father had resented him, blaming him for his mother’s death from the complications of childbirth, and Lan Qiren had known it, known it and suffered terribly from it.

He hadn’t wanted to resent his nephews the same way.

He hadn’t – and yet he had, at least a little. How could he help it? Lan Qiren had been a young man when his brother had retreated into seclusion, now going on ten years ago, and in truth, by the standards of his sect elders, he was still a young man. But he’d grown old before his time, trapped at home by duty during the age when most young men went out to travel the world, to do good deeds and earn fame and fall in love. He’d had to give all that up in favor of the soul-crushing drudgery of politics and the day-to-day management of a sect with so many people. He’d had to give up travel in favor of security because the sect couldn’t risk their last remaining heir, give up all thought of devoting himself to something of his own choosing, give up everything in order to fritter away his youth in endless, endless work. He’d had to give up that part of life that should have been marked by independence, autonomy, and agency, a time to learn and to figure out who he was. A time of freedom.

He hadn’t had that chance.

He never would.

From the very first moment that He Kexin’s pregnancy had been disclosed to him, that had been the end of it, the extinguishing of all hope. His nephews had shackled him to the Cloud Recesses more thoroughly than even the sect leader position, and although he loved them, it was because of that love that he was so thoroughly bound in place. He’d adored them from the first moment he’d seen them, loved them more than he loved himself, but he could not say that he had wanted them.

That would be a lie, and the Lan sect rules said: Do not tell lies.

From there came the resentment, from there came the guilt.

He hadn’t wanted them.

He certainly hadn’t wanted the closest adult relationship in his life to be with He Kexin, who he did not like and did not love and who he had certainly never touched – he, who’d never even kissed anyone – and yet he had no choice, for to do anything less would be to deny his nephews access to the mother they loved or He Kexin to the sons she’d birthed. He had had no choice but to see her every month when he took his nephews to see her, and then again even more often to ask her questions or bring her something she wanted.

Lan Qiren had resented her, too, even though he pitied her for her eventual fate, which she had brought upon herself. For his nephew’s sakes he had never said a word against her, keeping silent where he couldn’t say anything good – speak meagerly for too many words bring only harm – but in his heart he could not help but blame her for his predicament, for all the dreams he’d lost, even though he tried not to. The one who was ultimately at fault for ruining Lan Qiren’s innocent dreams of freedom was his brother, not the woman he’d married, but Lan Qiren still couldn’t help thinking that it had been her actions, her decision to kill a Lan sect elder within the Cloud Recesses, that had kicked off that terrible sequence of events.

If only she had never come to the Cloud Recesses.

If only she had chosen another way, any way, to resolve whatever her troubles had been other than murdering their teacher.

If only –

If only his brother hadn’t been so mad for love!

If only they hadn’t been so selfish, both of them - his brother in marrying his love to save her life despite everything she’d done, in declaring he would enter seclusion in penance rather than carry out the duties he’d sworn to uphold…if only they had not had children together, the second time with full knowledge that the child would be given to Lan Qiren as yet another burden he’d had no choice but to accept. They’d made him a father twice over without his consent, and sometimes it bewildered him how much he resented them both for that.

When Lan Qiren was being sensible and reasonable, he knew that his brother and He Kexin hadn’t had children for the purpose of hurting him, but that didn’t make him feel better about it.

He hated her for it.

In truth, he hated him for it.

He didn’t want to admit it – do not, the Lan sect’s rules counseled, do not, do not, do not – but he did, he really, truly did. Lan Qiren hated his brother.

He hated his brother.

As a child, Lan Qiren had adored him. His brother, ten years his elder, had seemed like a giant in Lan Qiren’s eyes, and he had for the longest time disregarded the fact that his brother had always disliked him for reasons that had never wholly made sense to Lan Qiren…but no love could live one-sided forever.

Years and years of crushing duty had curdled whatever love Lan Qiren had had for his brother into disdain and disapproval, a toxic stew made up of all those endless nights of wondering why, if he could sacrifice himself, his brother couldn’t or wouldn’t do the same. All those days of labor, those pointless sessions in front of his brother’s locked door attempting to report to him about matters of the sect that he ought to have cared about and maybe did, and receiving not a single word in response, not once.

Not one single time in all those ten years.

Yes, Lan Qiren hated him.

He hated the great and powerful Qingheng-jun, the man who should have been elder brother and father both, who should have cared for Lan Qiren instead of disdaining him. He hated the man who had been the Lan sect’s prized treasure and hope for the future, once upon a time, before he’d thrown it all away for a love like disaster, a love that no one had wanted, not even his wife.

Especially his wife.

He Kexin…

There had been so much blood.

Lan Qiren had been the one to find her.

Had it really only been four days ago? Only four days, four sleepless nights, and seemingly endless hours, since Lan Qiren had gone to see He Kexin – thankfully without his nephews – to ask her some pointless question he no longer remembered, and had instead found her dead upon the floor of her beautiful prison of gentians?

This will change everything, he’d thought at that moment, staring down at her body, mute with shock. Everything.

He Kexin had been a beautiful woman, a fact that had been unchanged by age or imprisonment, but now – now her beauty had been marred, irreversibly marred. The pool of blood around her, the bloody sword at her side…

Lan Qiren had rushed over at once to try to help, not yet realizing she was dead, not yet realizing what must have happened – what she must have done to herself, since there was no one else around. In his memory, he was still there crouched above her, his fingers still pressed to her neck to seek a pulse that wasn’t there, his other hand still cupped under her nose, trying desperately to feel the warmth of her breath on his palm and finding nothing.

Ironically, between the Cloud Recesses’ strict rules on segregating male and female disciples and how young he’d been when he’d been suddenly forced to become an elder, it was probably the most bodily contact Lan Qiren had ever had with a woman. Even Cangse Sanren, who he’d known for only one brief and bright summer, had had enough propriety to avoid unasked-for contact, or at least she did if one put aside her one late-night adventure in shaving off his beard while he was asleep. It was certainly the most contact he’d had with another adult in years, he who had only his nephews and his work and basically no friends. He was surrounded by family, that was true, but he was not close to any of them. Even the cousin he’d liked most as a child, a boy by the name of Lan Yueheng, had since gone out into the world to seek his fortune, or at least to go get more of those dreadful plants he was so fond of.

(He’d written, at first, but at the time Lan Qiren had been dreadfully jealous of his freedom, so he hadn’t responded. He’d instead let himself sink into the muck and mire of sect business, drowning in it, insensate to and rejecting the rest of the world in his bitterness and resentment, and by the time he’d resurfaced and realized he really did need other people, that relationship and all the others like it had weakened, grown distant. And now he had no one at all.)

Touch had long become something Lan Qiren had grown to deeply crave but didn’t know how to ask for. A friend, a lover, even someone who only wanted his body, a thought he’d initially disliked but in the intervening years had grown more open to…he’d thought to himself that he’d welcome anything, really, as long as it could touch him. And then, in some grim parody of his life so far, instead of what he’d really wanted, he’d ended up instead with a lifeless corpse in his arms.

Change, he’d thought, trapped in that dreadful moment, this means that things will change, and he had been afraid.

Not afraid enough.

He hadn’t thought – he hadn’t realized –

No, Lan Qiren couldn’t blame Wangji for having run away in the face of all the things that had changed, all the things that had happened, all the things that were still to come. These days, Lan Qiren found himself yearning to run away as well.

But empathy aside, Wangji was still missing, Wangji still needed to be found. He was not in the Library Pavilion, not even in the Forbidden Section, and so Lan Qiren left to continue the search.

“Have you seen him?” he demanded when he saw several of the disciples he’d sent out looking for Lan Wangji returning, but they all shook their heads in the negative. “What are you doing back here, then?! There are more places to check! It is winter, cold, and Wangji is young and likely not sufficiently dressed, liable to get sick. We must find him at once. He could be anywhere –”

“Qiren.”

A feeling of icy cold ran down Lan Qiren’s spine, a match for the absolute frozen calm of that voice.

It wasn’t because of the winter weather.

He turned and saluted formally. Too formally, really, given that they were inside the Cloud Recesses, alone among family, but he wasn’t stopped or excused from doing it.

He’d known he wouldn’t be.

“Xiongzhang,” Lan Qiren said, his head bowed down and his eyes fixed firmly on the ground for as long as he could manage before propriety required he look at who he was speaking with. “I did not see that you were there.”

“And yet here I am,” his brother said. He stepped out of the shadows and into the light, the gleaming Qingheng-jun in all his majesty – he looked perfect as always, and standing there in the gently falling snow he looked like some idealized dream of ink given form in real life. Ten years of complete seclusion seemed to have taken no toll on him, and he was as tall and broad-shouldered and beautiful as he had ever been. “Where else would I be?”

Anywhere, Lan Qiren thought, and tasted the bile of his hatred on his tongue. Anywhere but here.

Back in seclusion where you belong, maybe.

When Lan Qiren had found He Kexin’s body, he had known that it meant that things would change. Foolishly, perhaps, he had thought only in terms of the impact it would have on Xichen and Wangji. He had known that it would crush them. They were good boys, loyal and filial, and they loved their mother deeply; it was for that reason that he had tortured himself visiting her so often, despite his resentment of her. He had not known how to make her loss easier for them.

Xichen was old enough to understand death, at least, but Wangji wasn’t, being only six; Lan Qiren had worried about how he would take it. Lan Qiren knew how delicate his younger nephew was, how stiff and strict…how similar to his rigid, rule-bound shufu, to Lan Qiren’s agonized mix of pride and shame. He had worried about him all the more because of that, knowing how badly he himself would have taken such a thing at that same age.

He hadn’t thought to worry about anything else.

He hadn’t thought…

It had been ten years. Ten years that Lan Qiren had borne the weight of his sect on his shoulders, alone, and only a little over nine since Xichen’s birth. Ten years since he had been summoned home from some sect business he’d been sent on because his brother was too busy being in love to do it, the note in his hand speaking only of disaster. Ten years since his brother had married his beloved lady instead of letting her stand trial for murder. Ten years since his brother had declared that he would be entering seclusion to pay for his sins in marrying her.

Sins which, as Lan Qiren belatedly discovered, his brother considered to be paid off by He Kexin’s death.

Lan Qiren had been in a daze after discovering He Kexin’s body – no matter what he felt about her, she had been a reliable constant in his life, and he hated change – and he had been worried for his nephews, putting that fear before everything else. He had mechanically gone through the expected motions, the sort of thing that would happen with any unexpected death in the Cloud Recesses: the servants with access to the house questioned, though as expected all of them had been attending to duties elsewhere at the time, arrangements made for the body to be moved until the funeral, the house cleaned, a musician appointed to play spiritual songs in honor of the deceased, all the usual. Lan Qiren had done everything he needed to do as sect leader, and everything he had needed to do as the closest adult relative of her family as well.

Well.

The closest available adult relative.

Lan Qiren hadn’t thought twice about reporting the fact of He Kexin’s passing to his brother’s door, that useless practice he had maintained less out of conviction than out of habit. He had felt…sorry, he supposed, that he had had to tell his brother that his wife was dead, that the great love he had sacrificed everything for was gone. But at the same time he hadn’t paid very much attention to it, either. It hadn’t seemed all that important at the time, not in comparison with the agony he knew awaited his nephews when he told them the same news.

Lan Qiren hadn’t thought about what it might mean – for his brother, for his sect, for his nephews.

For him.

After all, with his wife, the reason for his seclusion, dead, there was no reason for Qingheng-jun to continue abstaining from the mortal world. He had come out once more, Lan Qiren’s elder brother, and in so doing he had taken back from Lan Qiren all that was rightfully his.

His sect.

His sons.

“There is no reason to waste other people’s time searching for Wangji,” Lan Qiren’s brother said, voice flat and disinterested. “When he is finished with his temper tantrum, he will come out to face punishment for his defiance.”

Lan Qiren’s nails dug into his palms.

Defiance? He wanted to shout. How can you speak of defiance, of punishment – Wangji is six! He is too young for punishment to be a lesson! At his age, he does not yet know how to trace the connection between his actions and their consequences. He is hurting, as anyone could expect; his mother has just died! To punish him now when what he needs is comfort would be worse than pointless. He would learn nothing from it, nothing but that those who he should be able to trust are willing to hurt him.

Don’t you dare, he wanted to scream. Don’t you dare touch him, don’t you dare…

But it was Lan Qiren, now, who could not dare.

He had raised both boys from infancy himself; he had done everything for them, more than a man of his position strictly should have. He had fed them with goat’s milk when the wetnurse the sect had hired couldn’t manage, he had had changed their dirty clothing, he had tucked them into bed, given them baths, wiped away their tears. He had taught them to speak, taught them to walk, taught them the rules, taught them everything he could – but in the end he was still only their uncle, not their father. He wasn’t even their sect leader, with power enough to stop that which he thought was wrong.

He could do nothing.

Lan Qiren had always believed that he did not love power in its own right. He had always been quite proud of it, even, patting himself on the back with the knowledge that he, unlike so many of his fellow sect leaders, had never sought the position, had never loved it for the power it gave him, had never yearned greedily to increase that power and been willing to make compromises in order to do so. It was only now that all power had been stripped away from him, rendering him absolutely helpless to enact his will and leaving him only his useless words that could change nothing, that Lan Qiren realized how accustomed to power he had become.

It was only now that he realized that power was necessary not only for duty’s sake, for tradition and for the sake of his sect, but to let him protect that which he held dear.

“I do not believe Wangji intended to be defiant,” Lan Qiren said, forcing the hatred and bitterness out of his mouth and trying to sound as humble as he could manage. He was still half-bent in the salute, trapped in the posture because his brother and sect leader had not seen fit to give him leave to stand back up; the humiliation was deliberate, the insult pointed, and it burned more than he might have thought it would, if he had ever thought about it. Lan Qiren had grown too arrogant, these past few years of reporting to his brother’s locked door as if to nobody, and his brother had not forgotten nor forgiven it. “I believe he has merely been overwhelmed by all that has been happening around him and fled in order to master himself. He reacts badly to change, and always has…the failure in teaching him is mine.”

“Yes, it is,” Lan Qiren’s brother agreed, and finally waved his hand – twitched his fingers, more like – to allow Lan Qiren to straighten. “They tell me you have made yourself some reputation as a teacher while I was gone, but I must admit I haven’t seen much evidence of it.”

While I was gone, he called it, as if he’d just ducked out for a quick night-hunt or a casual visit to see friends, rather than forcefully reordered the sect for ten years, stolen away Lan Qiren’s life for ten years, while he indulged himself in his sacrificial penance. While I was gone.

Just hearing it phrased like that made Lan Qiren’s blood boil. The rules said Do not succumb to rage, but Lan Qiren’s temper had always been poor, one of his many failings.

And yet he wondered how anyone could not succumb to rage in the face of such provocation.

“I admit to my failings,” Lan Qiren said again, hoping that his self-abnegation would satisfy his brother’s apparent desire to see him torn down. His brother had never liked Lan Qiren, an ancient hatred that had grown to be mutual in time, but seclusion seemed to have sharpened it into something very near to cruelty – it had only been three days since his brother had exited his seclusion, and Lan Qiren had already accumulated enough punishments that the end of the month would see him reporting to the discipline hall to be whipped like an immature boy. He’d already been obligated to spend one long bitter night kneeling outside in the cold winter wind instead of grieving or working; his brother had even come to watch, as if he’d thought Lan Qiren couldn’t be trusted to actually follow through on the assigned discipline.

He had been smiling.

“Still, as the fault is mine, I worry that Wangji may not realize that he has erred,” Lan Qiren said carefully, trying to strike the balance that would let him protect his nephew from a punishment he did not deserve and would not think to expect. “I am certain that he would make amends if he did. If only he can be found, first…”

His brother’s face did not show any sign of yielding, and Lan Qiren’s anxiety spiked. Didn’t he understand?

“It is snowing, Xiongzhang,” he said, stressing the word. “Wangji is still very young, young enough that a fever could be very dangerous to him, and he is likely not sufficiently dressed for the weather. If he isn’t found, he could linger outside and grow ill. If we could only find him…”

“You can do as you like with your own time,” his brother said, and Lan Qiren nearly lost his breath at the sheer dismissiveness of the statement, at how little his brother seemed to appreciate all that Lan Qiren had done in his absence. As if all of Lan Qiren’s sacrifices for the sect had been merely the misbehavior of an unattended child. “But do not waste that of others.”

That was the best he was going to get, Lan Qiren realized, and gritted his teeth in suppressed anger, wondering why his brother didn’t seem to realize, didn’t seem to care, even though Wangji was his son…but such thoughts were meaningless. His brother had decided, and his brother was sect leader, his word as immovable as any of the rules on the Wall of Discipline.

There was nothing to do but accept it.

So Lan Qiren did, nodding stiffly and saluting his brother once more before he turned to go.

“Once you find my son,” Qingheng-jun said from behind him, and Lan Qiren couldn’t help but wonder if he emphasized the words my son just to remind Lan Qiren that his nephews had never truly belonged to him, “you are to return him to his rooms and then report to my rooms at you shi. It is time to discuss your future.”

Lan Qiren swallowed. “My future?”

Change again, he thought, his stomach clenching in terror. Not again –

Although Lan Qiren didn’t turn around, he could feel his brother stepping forward again, coming closer to him.

“I think you’ve done enough here, Qiren,” his brother murmured into his ear, voice low but cold. Always cold. “Don’t you?”

No.

“Don’t be late.”

Lan Qiren nodded once more, stiff now with terror rather than rage, and left as quickly as he could. It was better not to think about it, he told himself. There wasn’t time to worry about himself right now.

He had to find Wangji.

Only…he still had no idea where his nephew could have gone. The Cloud Recesses were large, and Lan Qiren was only one man; he could only cover so much ground. He’d already checked all the usual places: his rooms, Xichen’s rooms, Lan Qiren’s own rooms, the classroom, the library, the discipline hall, the places he was usually assigned to do chores, the garden he preferred to play in. Lan Qiren knew that Wangji took after him, that he was also a creature of habit, that he preferred to walk the same paths whenever he could. And yet he wasn’t in any of his favorite haunts. Where could he be?

Lan Qiren wished he could at least ask Xichen for his insight – his older nephew could read his younger brother like no one else – but Xichen would be at his lessons now, and Lan Qiren had already been instructed not to interrupt or distract him. Xichen was his brother’s eldest son, his heir, and since Lan Qiren’s teachings had already been found to be inadequate, his brother had decreed that it was necessary for him to be thrown into a punishing schedule meant to help him meet his father’s expectations. Lan Qiren hadn’t seen Xichen for nearly two days by this point, and it was probably the longest period of time they had ever spent apart while they were both in the Cloud Recesses.

He hadn’t been allowed to see him.

Lan Qiren’s brother really was treating him as if Lan Qiren were still some stupid child messing around and causing trouble for everyone, rather than a man of thirty. As if Lan Qiren hadn’t led one of the Great Sects for ten years, managing the elders and tricky internal sect strife on one hand and the complex and subtle play of intersect politics on the other, as if he weren’t the man who’d raised his brother’s children for him, who for ten years had done everything for his brother, even tended to his older brother’s own damned wife –

Wait. He Kexin. Of course.

Today was the day of the month when Lan Qiren normally took his nephews to see their mother.

Lan Qiren had explained to his nephews that they wouldn’t be going to visit her this month, or ever again. He’d tried to be kind about it, but still explicit enough to make clear what had happened.

Wangji…Wangji must not have understood.

He had cried, of course, because Xichen had cried, but he hadn’t understood. Lan Qiren had stayed with them all night, first holding them in his arms and then playing them music meant to help them sleep. At the time, he’d planned to try to slowly coax his younger nephew towards some semblance of understanding. He had meant to repeat himself several times, to explain more, to give them both books or stories that would help them understand and come to terms with what had happened, but then the next morning Qingheng-jun had come out of seclusion and everything had so very suddenly changed…

No matter. Lan Qiren hurried his steps towards He Kexin’s house, and was relieved to see a small figure crouched there in the snow in front of the closed door.

“Wangji,” he called, though there was no response. “Wangji, there you are…”

He went over to where Wangji was stubbornly kneeling, red-nosed and red-cheeked from the wind.

“I’m here to see Mother,” Lan Wangji announced before Lan Qiren could say anything. “I’m not going.”

“Wangji…”

What could Lan Qiren say?

Your mother is dead, and you should mourn her. Your father is alive, and you should mourn that, too.

You have already lost so much, and though you do not know it, you have more yet to lose. Death has already taken your mother away, and your father is going to take me away, too. He has already barred me from Xichen, and he will do the same with you, I know it. I should tell you, prepare you for it, but I can barely bring myself to believe it, so how can I explain it to you? I do not know what my brother has planned for me, nor for you both, but I know that there is nothing I can do to stop him.

I do not know how to tell you.

I do not know how to tell you that I have failed you, Wangji. You and Xichen both. That I am not strong or wise enough to defend you.

I do not know how to tell you that things are going to change, change for the worse, and I will not even be able to be there to help you with it.

I have let you down.

You are still so young, Wangji. You probably will not even remember me after a few years, except maybe to hate me for abandoning you. You will not know that I did not do it voluntarily, only that it happened. Only that I did not stop it from happening.

If only I could stop it.

If only –

But there is nothing I can do.

I am useless, I am hopeless, I am worthless, just the way my brother has always thought me to be.

I am sorry, Wangji. I am so very sorry…

“…Shufu?”

Lan Qiren tried to say something.

It probably would have been something inane like The rules say ‘Do not grieve in excess’ – but all of a sudden he couldn’t get the words out of his mouth, all of them congealing abruptly into a sob he could not suppress. And that was even worse, because once there was one, there was another, and another, and then he was kneeling next to Lan Wangji in the snow with his hands futilely cast over his face to hide his disgrace, sobbing pointlessly like the immature child his brother so obviously thought he was.

“Shufu?” Lan Wangji sounded alarmed, as well he should in the face of such a wretched display by someone who ought to be setting a good example for him. “Shufu, don’t cry! I didn’t mean to upset you – I am sorry –”

“It is not your fault,” Lan Qiren choked out. He didn’t really think it was his own fault, either, not really, since he didn’t think he’d ever done anything to earn his brother’s hatred other than being born, but he blamed himself regardless. He blamed himself for Wangji having run away, he blamed himself for He Kexin having killed herself to escape her endless solitude, and he blamed himself for not being able to do anything to stop his brother from stealing away every source of joy he’d ever managed to spare for himself.

Was this the ultimate price of his dreams, he wondered wildly, the price of his secret resentment? Lan Qiren had never wanted to be a father, never wanted to run a sect, hadn’t wanted to be He Kexin’s caretaker – well, here it was, all his stupid selfish wishes finally fulfilled.

He wasn’t any of those anymore.

He wasn’t anything, anymore. In his brother’s eyes, he was scarcely even the second son of the Lan sect.

“It is not your fault,” Lan Qiren said, tears still spilling down his face as he wept, unable to stop himself. Do not grieve in excess, the rules said, but surely this was not excess. Surely this was exactly as much grief as his stricken heart felt fit for the situation. “It is not your fault. It is important that you know that, Wangji. You must listen to me, listen to your shufu. Know that none of this is your fault.”

“Shufu –”

“Listen to me. It is not you, it is not Xichen. You must both know that. None of this is your fault, none of it will ever have been your fault. It is only that – that things have changed, Wangji. Things have changed. They are never going to go back to the way they were.”

He could feel Wangji’s small hand on his arm, patting him lightly, seeking to comfort him.

But there was no comfort to be had.

“We cannot go back to the way things were,” Lan Qiren said again. “Not for your mother –”

And not for me.

#mdzs #my fic #my fics #lan qiren #lan wangji #lan xichen #madam lan #qingheng-jun #Megafic #here it is #I hope you all enjoy it #do mind the AO3 warnings if you prefer to have them #including for this chapter #when this is all posted I may share what the self-assigned prompt I used for this was

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mikodrawnnarratives · 4 months

Text

y'know what.

fuck it

Happy Birthday, dear Evie Artino

Renegades Trilogy - Word Count: 17092

Summary: It's been 12 years since Nova's family was murdered. After the previous year of being a renegade and the aftermath of her uncle's actions, Nova gets a moment to breathe. To grieve. Though, it's a little more than difficult to do that once she's told her baby sister's corpse was never buried. Never found. And now she has to search for the infamous thief, gone rogue, Magpie. As if she didn't have enough problems to deal with. Let's just get this over with...

Before you read!

This fic is going off of the assumption Magpie was 11 months old when her family was killed, therefore ten years later would mean she is 10 and 11 months old, 12 years later would be 12 and 11 months old (close to 13 years old) etc etc.

(I say assumption bc I'm not sure how canon Maggie being 11 months old at the beginning is. It makes sense since she was around the age she'd start to move around but still, just want to let y'all know)

I’ve done my best to show this on a timeline image in the end notes but I wanted to be clear with that! The timeline also goes off some assumptions and guesses for how much time passes from book 1 to the end of book 3.

BTW I'm sorry if ages and time stuff get confusing

I confused myself in the middle of trying to figure this out and, even though I think I've gotten everything fixed, there may still be issues

Check ao3 for tags

Nova took a deep breath, focusing on the wind gently tossing her hair. Better to focus on that than the heaviness in her chest. Leroy smiled and patted her shoulder in comfort.

“I’ll stay” Nova whispered, but then chuckled “But I’m crashing with you. The Renegades' campus rooms are terrible!” She straightened and let her tired smile relax.

Leroy shrugged, “As far as I’m concerned, the couch has been yours for a while.”

“Thank you, Leroy” She smiled. Leroy chuckled and pulled her into an odd side hug, her eyes blowing open from the action initially. She made a sly smile on her face to hide her apparent awkwardness, “I never took you for the cuddly type, Cyanide.”

“I’m not. But this is an exception.” He rubbed her arm, “You did good, Nightmare. Don’t beat yourself up about the rest.” Nova resisted the urge to fully melt in his touch, fully embrace it. Like she deserved it.

“If only it were that easy.”

“It never is. But that’s how life goes sometimes."

"Look at you being all noble and wise! Haha! You haven't been taking classes from Simon have you?"

Leroy's smile lessened a little, something crossing his mind, "Nova?"

She broke away from his hug, "Hm?"

"Have you visited them yet?" He adjusted his glasses, “They did give them actual burials, right?” Nova appreciated the dark look that donned his face. She knew that look, and the revenge schemes it carried if he so chose.

It’s been a year since Ace Anarchy was defeated for good. And a year since Nova’s actual family was revealed to everyone. Who her uncle actually was. Her motivation for becoming an anarchist in the first place. One whole year of recovery from the remaining damage, and of tearing down a faulty system and trying to rebuild a new one.

And it’s been twelve years since the murder of her family.

She pursed her lips and admitted what had also been on her mind, “No, no they did. I just haven't gone yet. There are gravestones and everything from what I've heard." She chewed on her lip.

Leroy tilted his cup around to watch the coffee swirl around. "Would you like emotional support?"

"You say that like a joke but please heh…" Nova laughed and turned to Leroy. She gripped the railing. "It's… gonna be weird. What do I even say?"

"They're graves,"

"Their graves."

“Right… my bad”

She fiddled with her fingers and Leroy placed a hand on her shoulder.

The chemist shrugged, "You don't need to know immediately. You don't need to go immediately, believe it or not."

Nova looked at him and opened her mouth to say something before a notification on her phone made her ears perk up the ever so slightest. She pulled it out to see the team group chat yapping about some shop opening. Leroy rubbed her back, "Just tell me when you want to visit."

"Thank you"

Nova spares a passing glance to the calendar and clock as she stands in the waiting room. She shifts from foot to foot. Discontent with standing, she paces. She wrings her hands as she does so.

It’s a miracle she hasn’t fled already. To procrastinate on it all for a little longer. But by this point it would be pretty idiotic to turn back now. Nova fidgets with her hair, waiting for her name to be called by the front desk.

It was taking longer than she would have liked to find out where her family's graves are. Leroy left with someone after they, not so discreetly, began to whisper. The renegade at the front desk kept passing weird looks to her. She couldn’t discern what emotion they had on their face. Maybe they were a prodigy, and gifted at masking. She didn’t get too good of a look at Leroy’s face either before he abandoned her in this desolate room. The cold blue light covering the room.

There’s no way they aren’t keeping something from her. Now she just wishes she had followed them. Anything to beat this trepidation.

Whatever they are hiding, she doubts it could be anything that Leroy would react better to than her. She keeps her ears peered just in case Leroy explodes something in reaction. There really wasn't a lot that Nova would take worse than Leroy, in her most humble opinion.

Footsteps running are her only warning before the front door to the establishment bursts open. Three hands all trying to cram through. Their bodies follow close behind in a clumsy, un-organized effort.

She jolts her head to the noise and stares at the multiple people who crash through. Adrien, then Ruby followed by Oscar, Danna, an-

Wait. Danna-?

"Nova!"

"We heard-"

"We're so sorry!!"

Roxy and Oscar charge past Adrian and run at her full speed. They knock her over before she could blink. She groans and sits up, utterly confused. "What are you talking about?"

Adrian opens his mouth and-

BOOM

Leroy…

Danna comes over to the three of them on the floor, and yanks them up to their feet. She places a hand on Nova's shoulder, "You haven't been told?"

"Told me what?!" Nova would have kept her attention on Danna if Leroy literally hadn't just made something explode, "Leroy, do you want MORE community service?! What's going on?"

Leroy yells something Nova can't make out. But he's pissed. She frowns, her guard rising.

"Nova" Adrian walked up to her, maintaining her eye contact. "I think you should see it for yourself."

Nova's eyes soften and she takes Adrian's hand, "Why can't you tell me?"

"BECAUSE THEY FUCKED UP AGAIN THAT'S WHY!" Leroy's hair was still poofy from his rage just moments prior. He marches straight to Nova, forcing her to part from Adrian when he grabs her by her shoulders. She flinches and he pauses, immediately apologetic for his abrupt action, he sighs. "You said you had a sister, yes?"

Adrian inhales sharply and Nova's frown deepens, "What does Evie have to do with this…?"

Danna speaks up, "Are you aware of one of the latest villains, that has been flaunting their superpowers everywhere? They are going by the name “the Terror" (if they couldn’t get more corny)" Danna sighs. "Just this morning they went around terrorizing all across the city. Everywhere and anywhere they liked."

"I heard about that, but I didn’t think they’d be able to wreck this place too. I thought these cemeteries had measures in place to protect them."

Adrian answers this time, rubbing his arm "Normally yes, but more Renegades have been needed to handle the new prodigy accidents and villain attacks ever since we defeated Ace Anarchy."

Danna speaks up again, "Resources for protection have been focused around civilian homes and shelters."

Nova blinks and her eyes widen slightly, "What happened."

Leroy smooths his hair out as he takes a deep breath, "The Terror robbed several graves. The Artino's were one of them."

Nova's face shifts from one of confusion to one of anger and horror, "Where are they." She practically snarls.

Leroy chuckles without humor, "That isn't the only thing, Nightmare." His hands shake.

"There's more??"

The Sketch team is quiet, allowing Leroy to speak.

Leroy chokes at first but clears his throat to speak clearer without his emotions in the way, "Your parents' caskets and bodies have been recovered and will be reburied and their graves fixed once they catch the culprit."

Nova loses her breath, "You said Evie earlier. What happened to Evie!?" She looks around, "What. Did. He. Do."

"Nothing" Adrian says, "Her body was never there."

“What?” She stared at Adrian like he was making an uncharacteristic sick joke. He wasn’t. Nova's eyes widen but in confusion more than any horror or shock, "What do you mean? If she isn't there then the graverobber must have taken her!"

"The motive doesn't match up. He wasn't interested in any of the bodies. Of all ages." Danna says.

Oscar chips in hesitantly, "Her casket doesn't have any evidence of where a body would have been for 12 years."

Nova pauses and after a long silence takes a deep breath. She shakily sits on one of the lobby chairs and hugs herself. She pinches the bridge of her nose, "Are… are you saying… that Evie's body-" she hesitates, clenching her teeth before swallowing the lump in her throat, "Evie was never recovered from the crime scene. For twelve years, she has been missing."

Adrian's face crumples slightly, hesitating to reach out. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry"

Leroy's murderous face makes too much sense now. Hot burning coals threaten to boil her alive just underneath her skin. Her breath slowly leaves her.

She was so close.

Nova had grieved before. She never thought her family would get the graves they deserved and had become okay with that. Or at least, grew used to the ache. Learned to be okay.

But, hearing they did. They did get graves. To honor their final rest. One they deserved when Captain Chromium failed them. Nova heard she could see them, even if they wouldn't be alive. Even just a gravestone above where their body rests forever. For a moment, a raw piece of her felt as if it could heal after being hollow for so long.

And it's been ripped away again.

Nova wants to be angry. She is angry. Angry at all the renegades who failed her family all over again. Who got to go home to their perfect, happy homes, in their rich lives, with their complete and happy family.

Everything feels fuzzy. In slow motion as she vaguely sees renegades exit the room one by one. Plans over the radio to recover from the graverobber underway. Mentions of names. The Artino’s. David… Tala…. Nova…

Evie…

Adrian slowly sets a hand on her shoulder, and she doesn’t jolt. He makes circles with his thumb as she breathes. Heavy breathes that keep her from gasping. She slowly lifts her head up. Her lip twitches and Adrian doesn’t say anything.

She’s furious.

She’s trembling.

She’s frail.

She’s weak.

She failed.

She failed them.

She failed Evie.

Logically, both her and Adrian know that’s not true. She tried her best. She was only six. A six year old couldn’t be blamed for what happened. He knows his father messed up. Which is more than Nova could ever ask of him.

Nova’s angry. And she’s sad. She’s so tired.

She’s hurt.

Her baby sister was so close.

But it was a lie.

###

Nova dumps the final bag of confetti in the recycling bin, marking the end of cleaning up after the parade a couple of days ago. It was to mark a year's progress after Ace’s second defeat. The permanent defeat. With confetti.

After all that work to clean up the streets from the last villain attack. Confetti. Suffice to say, she wasn’t the one to come up with the littering party idea.

The parade itself was an attempt to stir up some more positive attention to the renegades’ name. Or rather, to honor the work done so far to keep everyone safe. Not that any positive attention to the renegades couldn’t hurt their shambled reputation from the last couple years.

That’s how Nova thought of it. She wouldn’t have agreed to participate otherwise. Not when she could continue working on the case of her sister’s disappearing corpse. It was quickly going cold.

It was like the body walked away. Some kind of twisted magician’s act. And it was up to her to figure out how the magician did it. Where the magician is.

She purposefully avoided looking at Captain Chromium in the meantime. It only added salt to the wound to hear his involvement at the crime scene. Once it was a kind gesture for him to be so involved in her family’s death. Only after Nova learned Ace was responsible for sending the assassin. Now the gesture left a bitter taste in her mouth.

Surely he would have seen. Surely, he would have seen Evie’s body go missing. Footprints of a thief could have been documented. Her sister should have been put to rest. There should have been enough renegades at the scene to catch them!

It didn’t help that Adrian's father was on rocky terrain with Nova even before this revelation. And to think they had been getting along better over the last year. Now all that progress has been wiped clean. Who knows if it’ll be the same.

She felt the bag crunch in her grip. She let herself dig into it just a little more, just to get some of her fury out before dropping it.

Adrian talked to his father about what was remembered at the scene. Nova knew the man had been trying to talk to her to apologize for a while now but she just couldn’t face him. She wouldn’t want to punch her boyfriend’s father’s mug. Not that he’d actually be affected by it. The same applied to his husband as well.

Nova pulls out her phone. She clicks open the group chat she shares with the rest of her team. She scrolls back through the messages, looking for updates for what must have been the thousandth time.

Danna and Adrian have their time split between their own duties, so she couldn’t blame them. When they were available, they mostly worked on finding the negligent heroes (aside from the obvious) at the crime scene who were responsible for Evie’s disappearance. Danna’s been more helpful than Nova ever thought she’d be, seeing as they haven’t always been on the best terms. Understatement of the year.

She appreciated it nonetheless.

Oscar and Ruby have been incredible whenever they were free. They either joined her in what they deemed “detective business” (she really didn’t know how to feel about the name) or used their own efforts to search and track down where the body ended up.

Evie’s birthday is coming up soon.

And it’s been a few weeks since Nova learned about the absolute incompetence of the clean up crew. The current leading theory was a bias, which didn’t seem too far off. Adrian has been working with his father to see if this has happened to anyone else. Despite the rest of Sketch’s team trying to help out, Nova could feel her hope dwindle.

It was ambitious from the very beginning. To find the body of an 11 month old baby, twelve years after her death, but Nova really did let herself hope at first.

She couldn’t help but begin to sag around after any reminder of her sister. She felt conflicted between joining the efforts to find her, and distracting herself from the ache in her chest. It was like she was 6 years old all over again, and processing her sister’s death for the first time.

And it's certainly not a helpful attitude for actually finding her.

She’s begun to pack her schedule with numerous duties as of late. 24 hours every day allowed her to split her time between distractions and facing her current dilemma. No one was complaining from the extra help. The only real downside was the whispers about her. Nothing new. Everyone wins in the end this way.

Maybe she shouldn’t have been so open to any request in hindsight.

Nova stares at Thunderbird, “I’m sorry. Repeat that again?”

Thunderbird sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose, the hero seemed much more fidgety than ever now that Nova paid attention, “Nightmare. Magpie’s missing.” Her feathers fluff up as she articulates this fact to Nova. Like she should care.

Nova scoffs, “No, no, the other part. You want me to-”

“You aren’t busy, are you? Then we need all the help we can get.” Thunderbird looks seconds away from shaking Nova senseless. “Look. I… I know about your sister and it’s all the campus can talk about. And-”

“Really?” Nova blinks, “I didn’t think I was that popular.”

“And. I’m sorry to ask you this when you’re grieving.”

Nova shifts uncomfortably where she stands. Thunderbird rarely talked to Nova when she wasn’t furious. To come to her when she’s desperate is… different.

Nova clears her throat, “Are you her mom or something? Why are you so pressed where she is?”

Thunderbird blinks at her, and squints. Oh that really ruffled her feathers. Nova could see veins popping out. “No, I’m not. However, I sponsored her and got her in to be a renegade. (In hindsight, a very poor decision…)” She glares pointedly, “She’s barely a teenager! Isn’t this concerning to you?”

Nova laughs. “I was taking care of myself by eight. I know jack shit about what’s 'normally' concerning.”

Thunderbird blinks and settles down slightly. “Right. Right… you were raised by villains-”

“Anarchists.” Nova corrects.

“Sure. But that was for you. Surely you can understand why we are worried for her. The Bandit is her age by now.”

She's got Nova there. Thinking about it, Max going missing would frazzle Nova too. She folds her arms and gives her attention to Thunderbird. “Don’t the renegades require contact information from a guardian?” Nova asks, “They should know where she is?”

Thunderbird’s lip trembled slightly, “Margaret’s… a special case. Her orphanage approved her residence and I paid for her fees and expenses.” Nova blinks, she remembers now the previous residence where she found out the kid used to live. It was pretty much useless at the time and now a year later, it’s been brought up again.

“How do you know she’s not brooding and being a problem on purpose. Running away from any responsibility she had.”

“Nightmare.”

“What?” She raised her hands in defense before placing them on her hips, “Magpie isn’t exactly thrilled about authority. This could just be avoiding the consequences of her actions somewhere, and being the moody brat she is.”

“Margaret… yes, she is very… temperamental.” Thunderbird sighs, “But even Magpie doesn’t disappear for weeks.”

Nova does a double take, "Weeks?! And you haven’t started looking sooner??"

Thunderbird scowls, "Do you really think you're the first renegade I've told?"

Nova cheeks pinken slightly and she frowns, “Then who else knows?”

Allegedly: Captain Chromium, Simon, and most of team Sketch are all the heroes Nova is told has been notified. Thunderbird doesn't specify who is looking. Orders to send out missing posters were underway until there were complications with schedules.

Now that Nova thought about it, she may have heard Adrian’s parents discussing the 12 year old’s sudden absence a while ago. Thunderbird didn’t mention her friendgroup’s lack of involvement. She did note Adrian’s efforts to search for Magpie too. Nova bit her lip, she knew how much Adrian still cared about Magpie. Despite her sticky fingers.

“Is this the only reason you’re here?”

Thunderbird sighs, "You're needed for your familiarity in the locations listed here." She hands Nova files detailing the locations, "You may be interested to hear The Terror’s movements have been narrowed down to these districts."

Nova takes the files, "What about Magpie?"

"...All I'm asking is to keep an eye out for her. Report if you see her. Talk to her if you can. Try to convince her to come back, please.” Nova resists the urge to roll her eyes at the idea of peacefully talking with Magpie like Thunderbird is suggesting, “She grew up in that neighborhood, y'know."

Nova blinks, “She did?” Thunderbird nods and Nova hums. She already knew the whereabouts the orphanage Magpie went to at one point wasn’t too close to her neighborhood. It was plausible Magpie went to the elementary institution Nova vaguely remembers from the area.

Thunderbird folds her arms and Nova notices her feathers fluff up slightly. Oh now the birdie needs to be all stern and professional huh. Got it. No sentimentality here. “Your task is to search the area for The Terror already so… keep an eye out for Magpie. Report back to me.”

Nova deadpans, “Is that an order, Thunderbird?”

“It …is a request.” She took a deep breath to level out her pride, “Please, Nightmare. I know Margaret wasn’t the nicest-”

“Oh she was a complete turd.”

“Watch your language, Nightmare.”

“We’re both adults here, Thunderbird.”

“...right.” Thunderbird sighs, “But do you have to be so casually insulting. And in the workplace?”

“I’m sure Magpie’s called me worse behind my back.”

“How immature can you get…” Thunderbird deadpans.

“I’ll tell Magpie you said that.”

Thunderbird’s lip twitches and her feathers lift slightly, “oh, so you’ll look for her now?”

“No promises I’ll find her. Or bring her back. I doubt she’d come back easily if she ran away.” Nova scratched the back of her neck, “But Adrian cares about her. You care, I know Danna cares, and from what you tell me, even more than them. So why not.”

Nova won't like coming across the thief again but she supposed there's no other option with the mess the tween's caused.

“...then call me Tamaya.”

Nova makes a double take, “What? Where did that come from?” She stares at Thunderbird for an explanation.

Thund- Tamaya frowns, “We aren’t on the field. And we aren’t strangers. We’re coworkers. And Adrian is the closest thing I have to a nephew so…" She clears her throat. "And… Nightmare, if you help me find out if Margaret is safe you’ll have my deepest thanks.”

“...” Nova really could only stare. Tamaya is almost bowing. BOWING!?!! For her help. Someone she despises. Really? “Magpie matters that much to you?”

Tamaya straightens, “She’s fierce when she wants to be, and when I met her… you should have seen it, Nightmare. Her determination despite how young she was…” She cleared her throat, “If only I had done things differently, maybe she’d still be here. I’d know where she is.”

Nova’s eyes soften slightly and she sighs, rubbing her arm. She really hopes she won't regret this. She stashes the files away in her bag, “I’ll help. Promise.”

Tamaya deflates from relief, Nova could see the tension in her posture after being so vulnerable about this request. More like a plea than anything, really.

“And call me Nova, Aunt Tamaya.”

“I’m going to regret this, aren't I.”

“Likely!”

###

Adrian and Nova met up before she had to depart to search the district. Adrian squeezed Nova's shoulder in comfort when she sucked in a breath at the sight of her old neighborhood. She squeezed his hand back before they went separate ways.

The only pretty thing to look at here would be the setting sun and a darkening sky that is right behind it. The buildings fare much worse off, with buildings crumbling, the sidewalks are uneven from the large tree roots. Many of the homes sit with broken glass and lay abandoned.

Most people in these areas stick to the new apartments nowadays. They're the only buildings that are still structurally sound and have the least risk of break ins. Made to be less vulnerable to villain attacks due to the design of the buildings. Even the renegades have been trying to finish up repairs on one of their more elaborate renegades apartments.

Nova would be lying if she said she hadn’t thought of running away to live here when she was younger. Find an abandoned house to camp out at. Especially when Ace got angry. She never did, she didn’t want to abandon her only family. Even when he hurt her. He saved her after all.

Honestly, if she had lived here, it probably wouldn’t have been too different from living underground.

Growing up here couldn't have been nice.

Nova thinks about what Thunderbi- Tamaya said. Before she left she was told in depth about the process of resigning the Renegades, and it wasn't as simple as walking out unless you were arrested or were okay with losing any final paychecks and insurances offered.

Maybe Magpie did. It wasn't out of the realm of possibility.

Nova pulls the collar of her jacket closer, she really should have picked out a jacket with a hood. She needs to look casual though. There should be a coffee shop down the street that she plans to make a stop at. If anyone has eyes on her then it'll be her “motive” for snooping around the area.

She adjusts her black medical mask. Her movements are careful not to reveal the weaponry she’s hidden underneath her clothing. Her ears twitch from a garbage can jostling. A raccoon.

Nova makes it down the small stretch of suburbs still remaining, finally making it to the urban districts. She could hear the noises of city crowds up ahead. Lovely. Coffee shop right ahead. Either this villain shows themself and becomes a quick turn in, or she gets coffee. Classic on the job look there, huh. Maybe she’ll get hot chocolate, coffee is too bitter to be worth it.

"The terror" was becoming "the pain in the ass" to her honestly. The anarchists had their collections of thieves, sure, but on the other side of the coin turns them out to be more nuisances.

She takes one step onto the sidewalk and a figure runs into her, Nova is shoved straight into the brick wall behind her and they bounce back onto the ground “OOF-” She wheezes and scowls at the figure, “Watch where you’re goi-” The black clothed figure’s hood fell back.

There sat Nova’s other objective.

Magpie rushes to pack up all the things that had fallen out of her bag from the tumble she took when colliding with Nova. She freezes when Nova guffaws her name out loud.

“Nightmare?!” Her eyes bulge and she stares at Nova. Nova takes in the kid’s choppy haircut, now longer than the bob she wore when Nova first met her. A cloud of dirt has stained the mostly black clothing she has on, and Magpie clutches a passenger bag as she collects her last scattered item. A diamond bracelet.

Wait a minute. “What did you-”

Magpie bolts, cutting through the next crowd as Nova runs after her. “Get back here!”

Magpie takes a sharp turn into the nearest alley, Nova apologizes to all the citizens as she parts her way through. She sees the sewer lid slide into place when she gets to the alley. Oh, does that brat think she’s clever?

Nova pries open the lid and jumps inside, cringing from the smell immediately. Her shoes splash in the water the moment she gets down. She equips her flashlight though it’s almost unneeded when she hears more splashing up ahead.

She catches up and grabs the kid’s hoodie, ignoring her cry of shock. “What do you think you’re doing!?”

Magpie snarls and turns around and successfully pushes Nova away. “I could ask you the same fucking question!”

“I asked first.”

Magpie sneers, “Oh look who’s high and mighty by using playground rules.�� She turns around to walk away only for Nova to keep up pace with her. And that kid has the nerve to count her little collection of stolen goods in front of her. Nova runs up and tries to grab the bag out of Magpie’s hand, she curses under her breath when the brat dodges.

“Hey!”

“You’re stealing again, aren’t you! I bet that jewelry doesn’t even belong to you.”

“Belongs to me now.” But her eyes widen like dinner plates when Nova makes another grab for the bag, slowed down only by the sludge in the bed of the sewer, “Watch it! Some of this is mine for real!”

“So the thief admits it”

“Oh, will you shut the fuck up!” She complains once Nova stops making grabs at her bag so she could search it. Nova folds her arms and Magpie gives her a pointed glare, her nose scrunching, before returning her attention to her collection.

Nova returns it and pinches the bridge of her nose, “I swear to god, if you’ve been missing because you’re off playing the act of the latest thorn in our side ‘The Terror’ I-”

Magpie turned around with a deadpan, “Who?”

“Oh how convenient. You don’t know about the graverobber who appeared just around the time you disappeared.” Nova points at Magpie, “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t cuff you right now on suspicion of theft.”

“Wow, the Anarchist has turned full cop huh. What a shame. Newsflash, I’m not a graverobber. Do you really think these arms could lug around a shovel?” Magpie grips her bag tightly in the defensive.

“Your powers could easily help out with that, I'm not stupid.”

“And last time you knew exactly what my powers could do was…?” Magpie blinks several times on purpose at Nova, putting a hand next to her ear to mock signal the action to help hear better. “What was that? Never? Who knew!”

“Not funny.”

“Besides, modern day graves aren’t even worth robbing for the amount of effort it takes. No gold or silver is ever buried with those crypts anymore. The highest prices you could get would be from the organs.” The girl gags. Magpie fiddles with her passenger bag’s strap, but Nova can see she has been eyeing their whereabouts for an escape for the past few minutes.

Nova puts her hands on her hips, “Should I be concerned how you know this? Actually nevermind, you always say weird shit.” Maybe she was exaggerating here but she didn’t care too much at the moment.

Magpie whips her head back to Nova, scowling. “What are you even doing here. Shouldn’t you be after The Teapot or what's his name?”

“I’m here because you disappeared without a trace.”

Magpie rolls her eyes. “Please. Like anyone cares. I’ve been gone for two weeks and haven’t seen a single one of you hypocrites.”

“"No one cares"??” Nova guffaws.

“That’s what I said. Yes. Congratulations, your ears function perfectly.”

"Several people care! Do you think I'd be here looking for your ass if people didn't!? Adrian, Oscar, Thunderbird, Tsunami, both of Adrian's dads. You can't just disappear like that!"

"I quit." Magpie bites. "And, well, you found me! You can go tell them to mind their business."

Magpie begins to walk away in a huff, and Nova's mouth opens and closes like a goldfish before recovering enough of her brain cells after the audacity of the comment.

"What. Is wrong with you?! They don't just want to know you're okay, they want to SEE you're okay." Nova waves her arms around to emphasize her point. She subconsciously remembers and notes how she had picked the habit up from Leroy.

"Besides" she pinches her nose, "you can't quit the renegades without a conference and before handing over your equipment" Nova makes a pointed glare at the cleanup crew uniform Magpie wore under her hoodie, only barely visible. The clothing was less of an issue than the tech-advanced gloves and shoes Nova knows Magpie smuggled from the other techies in the renegades. She just knew that the uniform allowed the girl to carry more than usual.

Magpie's face pinkens slightly but she lashes back just as quick. "I'll do what I want, Miss Juliet."

"…What did you just call me?!"

“You heard me!”

Nova growls in frustration, “GOD why does anyone want you around when all you do is cause trouble and spout insults like it's a competition!?”

“You tell me! I've made it plenty clear that I don't want to be anyone's friend.”

“Magpie-!”

The girl had the nerve to try and dash away again, using her powers to rip herself out of the muck and stick to the walls. Nova reaches in her jacket and pulls out her netting gun, and in a second the projectile stretches into a web and stops Magpie in her tracks, trapping her foot temporarily. Magpie growls as Nova readjusts herself, prying away from the stickier filth.

“Are you even listening?!?! You’ve been missing for weeks!! You can’t just disappear like that.” She sighs “You worried a lot of people. Good people. Frankly, good people that have much better things to be worrying about than a thief.”

Magpie groans, “You’ll NEVER drop that will you.” She shakes away the net from her foot and Nova collects it with a frown.

“Maybe when you show actual change for once.” Nova scowls and points to Magpie’s satchel. “I bet that bag is full of stolen goods, huh. A thief in the renegades.”

“Did you already forget I QUIT” Magpie grits out as she gets up.

“Again. Not OFFICIALLY! You’re still associated to them-!” Nova fumbles, “Them- us. The heroes.”

Magpie doesn’t seem to notice her fumble and solely focuses on what she said before. “OH like I’M gonna deal so much damage to the renegades reputation” She sneers and kicks aside some trash.

Nova takes a deep breath before practically shouting, “Yes!”

“I don’t go around flaunting my story unlike someone.”

Nova grits, “You are infuriating.”

“Thanks, I try.” Magpie brushes dirt off her clothes like it’ll make a change to how muddied they’ve become. “And besides, the renegades don’t need help soiling their reputation.”

Nova sighs and rubs her forehead, “I’ll never understand what Callum ever saw in you.”

Nova expected a snarky comeback immediately. Some snappy retort spat back at her like Magpie had been doing.

But Magpie stays quiet.

Nova looks over and sees the way Magpie's fists clench. She considers saying something again but Magpie brushes ahead of her.

Nova tilts her head to get a better look at Magpie and sees the kid’s fists clenching. Nova considers saying something before Magpie grunts and continues to search for the sewer exit. Preferably one that Nova isn’t in the way of. Nova still follows close behind.

“Maybe that’s why Callum was better than you hypocrites.”

Nova frowns, she really shouldn't be surprised anymore. “You’re one to talk.”

“Why do you think I left.” The heat was rising in her voice again, and Nova gladly met it.

“What else? Selfishness!” Nova’s hands swung around to exaggerate her point. “You didn't even think about how the people around you would worry for your safety?? All so you can indulge in a life of crime.”

“That’s not why I-”

Nova deadpans, “Sure.” Nova walks ahead of the tween in a spurred heated pace, turning the corner and checking the area. Magpie’s appearance had distracted her from the fact they were in territory many new villains loved to travel through. Must be the "aesthetic".

Despite walking ahead, she didn’t go so far where Magpie would be out of her peripheral vision. Her ears remained keen for if Magpie would try to dash off again.

“If you'd just let me talk-!”

Nova turns around, about to open her mouth when something large shoves her into the wall. She hears a shriek and draws her weapon blindly. It’s ripped from her hand almost immediately and she whips her head up, finally seeing their attacker.

A tall boney figure of a man stands right across from her, holding the small tween in his grasp with a maniac smile on his face. He’s giggling. The dagger Magpie had tried to grab in a last ditch attempt to protect herself had been pried out of her grip. The man brings her dagger to the kid’s neck, only centimeters away from slicing skin. Magpie trembles, trying to squirm out of the sickly skinny man's hold. His grin stretches from Nova's attention.

"If it isn't the famous hypocrite, Nightmare" the villain drawls out. When Nova steps closer, he shifts the dagger dangerously close to Magpie's neck. She stops. "Yeah that's right…" the villain giggles deliriously, twitching. "You can't do anything."

"What do you want?" Nova says cautiously, her eyes stayed glued to the dagger. Under her breath she whispers “250cm. Shabby haircut and facial hair. Notch in right ear, scarring from corner of the ear to top of-”

“Are you tattling on me? …heh …hehe continue! Not that it will work~” The villain strangely allows her to note the details and send in the report for back up “They won’t get here in time.” He sniffs and blinks lazily. Is… Is he drunk? His grip on the dagger laxes ever so slightly but Nova doesn’t breathe a sigh of relief just yet.

“You haven’t answered my question sir.”

“Drop your bag pretty little lady” The man uses his foot to slide Magpie’s passenger bag over to him, “This one’s getting lonely~” The raven-haired child squirms in his hold but he tightens his grasp on her, creating a striking cut across Magpie’s neck. Magpie cries out in pain.

“That’s what this is? A robbery? Drop the kid you don’t need to-”

“Stop talking, or I’ll slit her THROAT!!” The villain screams seemingly out of nowhere. Nova halts immediately, giving the villain more satisfaction than she’d like to. She grits her teeth, plotting how to handle this. “There we go~ That wasn’t so hard was it? Can’t ignore me now huh heh… heh heh”

Nova prays he’ll start to monologue. Oh please let him start monologuing! She needs the tim-

“You may be wondering why I’m doing this…”

THANK GOD

Magpie looks to be in pain but even she rolls her eyes in annoyance. The man giggles and his body seems to spasm like static. Nova squints. His hair shifts from orange to black to brown in a matter of seconds.

“Do you like my power, little Nightmare?” Nova jolts and sees the scruff and build of Ace Anarchy right in front of her. An unstable form that shifts back into a stretched twig in the next second. “I’ve been meaning to give it a test run.”

“How are you-” Nova barely gets a word in before the villain continues.

“My form appears differently to all who see me. I appear as the people you’ve feared, who you’ve hated and cowered under in the past. I am fear. I am terror.”

“Wait- You??” Recognition hits Nova like a stack of bricks and she groans internally. The graverobber.

A grin stretches across his face. His eyes hollow out and he takes on a sickly gray appearance. It almost looks like Ace Anarchy… but not quite. His eyebags stretch down his face for forever and he almost appears undead. His teeth appear chipped and stained with alcohol. His lip appears blistered, bleeding, as if a smoker’s lip.

Magpie screams when she sees his new appearance. With the villain’s attention away from her, she almost escapes his hold. She kicks wildly at him with the heels of her feet.

The Terror growls and makes a wild jab at Magpie before she escapes his hold, he nabs her cheek but Nova jumps in to restrain him before he can do anymore damage. Magpie falls to the ground as Nova grabs a hold of the villain. Nova rips back his (real) sleeve but the man shoves her off him before she can activate her power.

The villain trips her and Nova curses when he attempts to keep her down by kicking her. She grabs his foot and yanks him down into the sewer’s sludge. She gets one good punch in before he returns the blow.

The man grabs the dagger but before he can strike, the dagger is ripped out of his hands and heads straight into Magpie’s. The Terror snarls at the child but gets caught up in wrestling Nova for her netting gun. Magpie dashes the other direction.

His face shifts to Adrian’s and Nova falters, immediately losing her advantage. Her own netting gun fires from The Terror’s hands, and pins her to the ground, knocking her head to the side.

She jolts up to get out of her own net casing, furiously searching for the other dagger on her person. She does her best with the newfound dizziness. The adrenaline pulses through her veins, allowing her the luxury to ignore the growing headache. She has no doubts it'll be an issue later, unfortunately.

The man fires the net at Magpie next, pinning her down for good measure as he searches her bag and nabs what he finds shiny. Magpie kicks and swears up a storm. The villain shoves her into the muck to shut her up. He takes her bag and runs.

Nova curses herself for her design choices. The net only closes around its capture, leaving no room for correction. She severs the net around her with the dagger the villain hadn't gotten a hold of in his hast, but it takes her longer than she’d like to retrieve it.

She clutches her head once she gets onto her feet, stumbling only slightly. The tunnel's few and far between lights flickered. The villain got away.

Nova almost considers going after him but Magpie's struggling takes precedence. Nova beelines for Magpie, kneeling down and cutting the ropes that trap her face in the sewer's waste and water.

Nova cuts away the last piece that kept the child down, and Magpie jolts up to gasp. She sputters and coughs for a few minutes, gulping precious air. Procedure mandated Nova check with Magpie if she swallowed any water and (at least from Magpie’s testimony) she’s fine. Wouldn’t hurt to check out later.

Nova frowns toward the direction the villain went but shakes her head. Not yet. She helps pull Magpie to her feet and helps her down on the dry (not dry, moist actually, but considerably dry-er) concrete that sits above the sewer water. Nova pulls out a med kit, paying attention to the gashes the villain landed on Magpie. Her own could wait.

When Nova attempts to clean the gash on the kid’s cheek, Magpie jolts backward. Nova sighs.

“If I don’t do this, the wound will only get worse. Trust me, you don’t want to get an infection.” She says sternly. “And the quicker we do this, the sooner we catch that bastard.”

Magpie frowns, her eyebrows furrowing. She isn’t whining anymore at least, and she braces herself when Nova pulls out the antiseptic again.

Magpie winces from the sting of the disinfectant. Nova frowns and sympathizes with the kid. Using this disinfectant wasn’t the most preferable way to deal with these cuts, she’ll admit. But after the wounds’ contact with the sewer water, infection was definitely a greater concern. Nova will probably need to haul Magpie over to headquarters just to make sure the kid didn’t get any diseases from the sewage.

The cut on the kid’s cheek really only needs a simple bandaid but the laceration on her neck requires gause. It’s hardly a pretty sight but at least it isn’t bleeding too badly. Likely surface level.

She, again, cleans the wound and ignores Magpie’s winses. She applies the gauze to her neck and gently wraps the bandage around.

Nova lets out the breath she had been holding in, “There. That wasn’t so hard was it?” Despite what she said, her tone was only half heartedly snarky. The villain had caught her off guard and she wasn’t enthusiastic to fail helping the kid again.

Magpie doesn’t respond. Instead, she chooses to stand up again, stumbling in the process. Nova catches and steadies her. Nova tries to check the kid’s head for a bump but the kid bats her hand away. The child frowns and looks away, feigning strength that contradicts her dependance on Nova to keep her steady.

Nova turns her attention away from the ex-renegade and back to the sewers. Inside her jacket, the thrum of her tracker comforts her of the villain’s whereabouts. She pulls it out and watches the flickering red spot’s movements. The blinking green dot marks where she is.

“He hasn’t gotten far. Keep a hold of my arm and on my sig-”

“It’d be easier if you left me behind” The ex-renegade gruffs.

Nova looks at her, “He took your stuff too.” And Nova didn’t want to risk the kid running away the moment she left her sight. But one appealed more to Magpie’s wishes than the other.

Magpie huffs and her attitude returns, “I don’t carry anything too important. I’m not stupid. He just snatched today’s income.” She mumbles something about finding a new bag.

Her nonchalance couldn’t help but make Nova bristle, “Income? Really. You mean what you’ve stolen today.”

“I’m using my powers for something useful now, aren't I?”

“Something useful would be helping people.” Nova couldn’t help the bite that came out in her voice. “Not causing a bigger issue for the Renega-”

“Why would I help them?” Magpie snarls, “Their reputation can go die for all I care. They didn’t help me and they aren’t entitled to my help”

Nova blinks, “What?”

“I know you heard me, don’t lie.”

Nova deadpans, “Oh? Clarify for me.”

“Why should I.” Magpie shoves herself away from her, getting her balance back mostly. She keeps one hand on the sewer wall.

Nova sighs, giving up on getting an answer for her question. Better to not beat around the bush. “What do you mean by ‘they didn’t help’? They were always reaching out! Callum was-”

Magpie scoffs, “Exactly. Callum. Everyone else was in it for my powers.” She grumbles something inaudible and then, “He was too but at least his power let him see past that.”

Magpie winces in pain and stumbles, Nova rushes to her side to catch her again. Magpie doesn’t bother fighting her again but she does scowl. Nova ignores her and focuses on helping her walk. The kid’s right foot must be sprained or something.

Nova sighs, “Renegades are chosen because of their skillset.”

Magpie huffs “Yeah, well. I signed up for history. Artifacts.”

“And you barely did anything.”

Magpie blew her hair out of her face. “Then good thing I’m out of your hair now. You don’t have to spare a thought to think about how worthless I am to you lot.”

Nova groans internally. She’d give anything to just drop the kid. “No one thinks you’re worthless. You haven’t been applying yourself so-”

“I have.” Magpie defends.

“Really.”

“Really!”

Nova heavily doubts that but chooses just to roll her eyes. “Well if we’re going to talk about this, why did you leave.” The villain wasn’t too far ahead but he had still made a substantial run for it. They were hardly close enough for their voices to be heard by him yet. From what the tracker suggested, he had paused to look at all his newfound treasures. Likely, he hadn’t noticed the tracker yet. Amateur.

“The renegades are hypocrites now.”

Oh this argument? Nova takes a breath, “They always have been.”

Now it was Magpie’s turn to be skeptical.

Nova continues, “But these kinds of organizations will always have flaws. That’s why good people need to be there to improve them.” Nova never thought she’d see a day where she’d so adamantly defend the renegades but here they were.

Magpie pipes up again, “And yet they still flaunt the idea everyone is equal” Her words taunt the idea itself in an almost singsong way. “Nobody sees that’s the furthest thing from the truth”

“What do you mean by that?”

“No one is equal just because everyone and their mother has powers now.” She shifts slightly as they walk to turn the corner. “No power comes with the same strength as another. And now prodigies aren’t people who earned it.”

Nova chokes and whips her head around to the kid, “Earned it??”

Magpie puffs her chest out, defending her claim with no hesitance, “Becoming a prodigy comes from survival!” Her fist tightens, “And now there are new “prodigies" that flaunt their power like it’s the same thing!” She pointedly looks at the tracker with the villain’s location. Nova had to admit, she was right for this case.

Despite that, Nova refutes Magpie’s previous claim, “Not all ‘previous’ prodigies got their power out of necessity.”

Magpie bites back, “The majority did. And yet, everyone’s trying to act like nothing has changed for the worse.”

Nova frowns, “What does this have to do with you quitting?”

Magpie shuts her mouth and remains silent. They walk a good chunk for a good chunk of time before Nova opens her mouth, “Oh now you’re silent on me again. Great.”

Magpie groans something closer to a whine. “Why are you so interested anyway??”

“Maybe I want to know what’s in that skull of yours to think it’d be a good idea to disappear for weeks! You worried-”

“I don’t care.” Magpie mutters.

Nova still heard it. “Say that again.” A challenge really.

“They don’t actually mean it.”

Nova barks a humorless laugh, “Yes, (oh boy) yes, they do!”

Magpie whips her head back to Nova, “I was a nuisance! I burdened everyone. I used up resources.” She listed them like they would obviously affect how others would think of her.

And it did. Not always the way Magpie believed though.

Nova agrees with her, “Yeah, you were. What does that have to do-”

“Everyone should be happy I’m gone. I’m no longer a stain on their reputation.” She shoves her hands into her pockets. “But then again, they ruin their reputation well enough without me.”

Nova doesn’t bother trying to interject and correct her again. Instead, she listens to Magpie spout off. She’s fessing up now.

“I’m on the side that matches my character now, right? At least in their eyes. You should be happy.” Magpie quips, continuing her spiel.

Nova doesn’t say anything for a moment. Taking in the kid’s words. She isn’t really sure if she regrets making Magpie talk again. It was easier when she was silent honestly. Easier on her headache. Regardless, Nova speaks up again, “...That’s it? That’s why you made everyone worry?”

Magpie speaks firmly, “They aren’t actually worried. I can guarantee they just want my superpower and labor. Why would they be worried about me?”

Nova takes in a deep breath, hopefully warding away her oncoming headache. “Honestly, I have no clue.”

“Told you.” Magpie grunts.

“But.” Nova breathes out, “They are worried regardless. Thunderbird herself asked me to go looking for you. And she doesn’t even like me!” Nova hoped her emphasis on Tamaya’s desperation would convince Magpie but it had the opposite effect.

“If anything that proves my point they don't care.” Magpie chuckles. It wasn’t funny. “Leaving my fate up to an ex-anarchist. If they are so concerned, where are they right now?” It almost sounded like a genuine question. One that flabbergasted Nova to no end.

“Busy! And they have been looking for you. They just also have more important things to do than-”

“Look for a shitty kid?” Magpie finishes for her. Nova’s eyebrows furrow at the wording. “I know you don’t like me. Nobody likes me. I made sure of that.” Of all the things for the thief to be honest about, Nova didn’t think admitting her self fulfilling prophecy would be one of them. “Callum was the only one that- …”

“That what?” Nova pries.

“That…” Magpie’s face scrunches up, a pattern when she’s forced to be vulnerable. “I mean that he was annoyingly persistent. He had a good superpower that… could have changed the world.”

“It did.”

Magpie laughs sourly, “It didn’t.” She shakes her head. “He died.”

“He inspired the people around him.” Nova insisted.

“And look what happened to him.”

A silence falls over the two. An uncomfortable one. Nova honestly isn’t sure what to do. Magpie never seemed the sentimental type in any shape whatsoever. She wouldn’t believe the kid even cared about Callum if she hadn’t seen her sobbing over his dead body last year.

Nova breathes in and breaks the silence, “He… was a martyr.”

Magpie’s voice comes out raw. “So? The wonders he saw shriveled up.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yes, it is. Barely anyone in this city has a shred of pity in their soul.” She spits. “Not without profit. Without glory.”

Nova puffs her chest out, “Bold of you to criticize this of the city.”

“Bold of you to assume I give a shit. I know my hypocrisy. I’m just telling it as it is.”

Something in the way Magpie uttered her last statement makes Nova pause. A sort of Deja vu waving over her. The echo of their footsteps quickly replaced their voices and filled the halls of the concrete and waste maze.

“...sounds pretty lonely.”

“Nice try, Nightmare. I’m not falling for that.”

“I’m not trying to trick you.”

Silence. Nova isn’t surprised by this point. In the corner of her eye she could see Magpie avoiding her gaze, entranced by the mesh of components that make up the concrete below them. Nova briefly glanced at her tracker and chewed on her lip.

Nova sighs, “Just… Give me a reason to tell Tamaya and the others why you left when I get back.”

Magpie turns to her, squinting her eyes. “Are you serious?”

“Dead. Dead serious.”

Nova looks at Magpie a second longer and flicks her attention back to the tracker. Magpie opens her mouth and Nova places a finger against it. Magpie's face twists in offense until she realizes what they've stumbled across.

Nova cautiously leans forward to see two men and the lanky villain from before. The lanky villain has donned a new mask, covering his face and neck entirely, masking his ability but protecting him from Nova’s. Magpie freezes and Nova moves her hand to the kid’s shoulder, squeezing gently.

She taps Magpie’s shoulder once. Twice. Magpie blinks and perks up to look at her with a surprised recognition. Nova continues relaying her instructions.

The girl squints her eyes at Nova. Nova gives her a look and the girl huffs.

"..-. .. -. ." she taps back. The Morse code didn't translate her tone, but Nova could tell from expressions alone the girl’s grumpy agreement [Fine.].

Nova places her hand on the wall and points to one of the individuals The Terror stands next to. The one that looks about ready to fall over from nerves. He's holding a hefty chunk of concrete, the torn reinforcing steel at the center. It’s hard to miss the gaping hole in the wall, light shining through it.

Magpie gives one gentle attempt to pull the bag away from him, it's across the shoulder of the man, but she slumps and gives up soon after. His arms are in the way of cleanly stealing her bag back.

Nova’s head lifts up and she points to the gravel and shards from the mess the group must have made in their haste into the sewers. The girl activates her powers and gathers the shards at her feet. Magpie moves them slowly into the water.

The movement startles the timid man ("Crocodile?!") into dropping the concrete, it breaks half once it meets the ground. The halves splash into the sewer's muck and liquid. One of the dealers smacks him in the head and the Timid dude straightens.

Magpie and Nova breathe a quiet sigh of relief once the merchants return to deciding the price they’ll pay for The Terror’s stolen items. Magpie lifts one slab of concrete slowly, breathing in. The water decreases the difficulty of carrying the concrete slabs, the only challenge will be getting it out.

Nova stays tense. She keeps a finger on the activation tigger of the tracking device. In the past she’s designed and built in the function to employ a heavy magnetic force, stuck to whomever she aimed it at. The corresponding magnetic rope weighs heavy on her gear belt.

“460. Final offer.”

“Deal.”

“Mack, get the fucking rocks, we’re going now.”

“Yes!”

Magpie jolts and lifts the concrete into the air, throwing them at the three. One thwacks the timid man, and he collapses to the floor. The second only grazes the Terror and the other dealer.

Nova activates the tracker, the metal presses tightly against his leg and expands to his knee. Magpie uses her power to shut the messy entry/exit hole. The Terror backs up and the second dealer curses Nova’s hero name. He opens his hand-

Nightmare shoves Magpie out of sight at the corner and dodges the dart flown her way. She runs up and kicks the second dealer into the sewer water before tackling the Terror to the ground. Her netting gun falls from her person in the process.

Magpie pulls her bag to her person, as well as the other (much larger) bag of trinkets and valuables stolen by the graverobber. She pays no attention to Nova punching the Terror and his strikes in return. Roughhousing. None of her business now.

She rummages to check her own stuff is still present, and then peeks through the other bag of belongings. Her eyes catch a card and she fishes it out.

A drivers license, with the name Oliver Berk listed next to a picture of a man.

Magpie doesn’t get to examine it for long. The second dealer hacks up the disgusting “water” and pulls himself out. He grabs Nova’s netting gun. Nova’s too busy keeping the Terror from escaping to notice. The Terror’s clothing covers up her options to force him unconscious in a split second.

Magpie jolts up to her feet and runs out of hiding. “Hey!”

The second dealer looks up just before she shoves herself against the man to grab the gun. He yells in shock and she scrambles to rip the netting gun out of his hand. He grabs her hood and lifts her into the air. “What the hell is this kid doing her-” She aims the netting gun and pins him down.

She goes down with him, only outside of the net. He lets go of her hoodie and she knocks against the concrete. Nova looks up in a panic from the sound, wide eyed and distracted. The Terror kicks her in the stomach and abandons the scene. But not before smashing the tracker device, prying it off of his leg.

###

Nova groans and gets to her feet. The pain eases after a moment. She looks up and breathes a sigh of relief to see Maggie getting to her feet.

Nova slides down into the gutter between them to reach Maggie sooner. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Breathes Maggie.

Nova strides toward the kid and grabs her shoulders. Magpie freezes. Nightmare checks her head for bleeding, only finding a goose egg. “You got knocked twice in the head today.”

“I’m fine, Nightmare.”

Nova sighs and lets Maggie go. Choosing to walk over to the second dealer, she puts her hand through the net and forces him to fall unconscious. Nova’s phone pings with a new message and Maggie uses her power to snatch it and view it as Nova collects the other dealer from where he dropped.

“How come you didn’t run earlier?” Nova asks Maggie as she looks through the two villains' persons for identification, not before tying them up just in case.

“When?”

“When you grabbed the loot.”

“...ahuh.” Nova scratches her cheek. “And you ran out of hiding because…?”

Maggie pauses and shrugs. “They… could have had more on them”

“If- if he got you then I’d be fucked!” The girl defends herself. “Who here is more experienced with fighting and winning?”

“Okay okay, that’s fair.” Nova collects two identification cards. “These will be helpful at least.”

Nova accidentally pulled out a photograph when she had searched the man's pockets. She stares at a photo of kids barking a resemblance to the man. She sighs in sympathy.

“I found another.” Maggie pulls over the large bag and hands Nova the driver’s license. “Oliver Berk. No powers recorded on it as of five years ago.”

“It’s outdated?” Nova examines the identification. “It doesn’t match either merchant.”

“The Terror?”

“It’s more likely to belong to someone who died in the past few years.”

Magpie’s nose scrunches, “Why would you steal a driver’s license? They’re worthless.”

Nova gives her a look, “Actually, they’re worth a lot. Especially if you need a new identity.”

Maggie blinks and her cheeks pinken ever so slightly out of embarrassment for not thinking of that possibility. “Well… won’t a dead person’s ID catch eyes? Someone would notice that right?”

“...Who knows anymore.” She sighs.

Maggie pulls out Nova’s phone she snagged earlier and looks at the message.

“Oh. Her.”

“Who?”

Maggie shows the screen to Nova. Nova sours for a moment to see Maggie stole her phone. She perks up in interest the moment she recognizes Thunderbird’s contact.

"Was she the one who put you up to looking for me?"

"Yeah why?"

Maggie walks over to the side of one of the men to sit down, crossing her legs. "She, especially, doesn't care. Not really"

"Sounded like she cared to me."

"She cares about my power. How it can be used. She was jumping to sponsor me after I tried out. Though, I bet in a heartbeat she'd want it to be someone else's." Maggie fidgets. "...she’s the reason I got out of the orphanage and a place with the Renegades when I did."

Nova hesitates to respond. She wishes she knew what to say, but she can't think of anything. Nothing that would make anything better. She doesn't know Tamaya well enough to argue or agree.

"...sorry about that, kid."

Maggie shrugs and places the phone down. Nova retrieves it quickly but Maggie's already reverted her attention to searching the merchant's pockets as if it were Christmas.

"You should probably tell her how you feel." Nova tries. "Might help clear up some things…"

Maggie pauses. She changes the subject.

“About your question earlier? About what you should tell them? Yeah… tell them don’t bother.” Magpie says as she packs up her once stolen trinkets, “It’s best for everyone if I stick to being a ‘villain’. If you’re shocked-” she searches the knocked out pawnbroker’s pockets for cash or anything of value, waving around the items to examine them “Don’t be! It’s been a long time coming.”

Nova at Magpie. “Really?”

“Yes, really. Is that so hard to believe?”

Nova snorts, “No it isn’t. I’m being validated.”

Magpie deadpans as she shoves a very fancy trinket into her bag, “Congratulations. Would you like a metal?”

Nova blinks, “Did you just-”

“MEDAL! Medal. Gah forget it!” Magpie’s face pinkens and she stands to her feet in seconds. She secures her bag in its place, keeping her eyes away from Nova’s amused expression. “Anyway. You know I only care about me.”

“That’s true”

“Callum was the selfless one.”

“Yep”

“And he was wrong about me.”

Nova clicks her tongue, “I mean, I didn’t know him for very long all things considered, but I have a hard time believing Callum could be wrong about something like that.”

“Well, he was.”

She raises her eyebrow, “What exactly did he say about you anyway?”

Magpie scoffs, “What? The potential he saw? The wonders his power “revealed”?”

“Well, yeah. What else.”

“Stupid stuff…” The tween mutters.

Nova pries more, “And that stupid stuff is…?”

“...” Magpie relents after a moment of silence. But not after taking the time to roll her eyes. “He made me think that I could help people… the way I wanted help once.”

“This is stupid. You don’t care.”

Nova pauses and can’t find anything to say about what Magpie just uttered. Nothing that would help. She waits for the kid to say anything more on the subject.

“No- well…” Nova grimaces and sighs, “Why don’t I tell you something.”

Magpie whips her head back to Nova and squints her eyes. Eventually she bites and asks, “Tell me what?”

Nova took a breath and before saying something she hopes she won’t regret telling the 12 year old, “After we defeated Ace Anarchy, I wanted to quit.”

“Quit?” Magpie looks over to her, dumbfounded expression and everything.

“Yep.”

Magpie’s expression lessons. “...Why?”

“I felt I’d do more harm than good staying on the team.” She chuckles, beginning to fidget with her bracelet out of the need to do something with her awkward hands. “After all, my mistakes led to Ace running free for so long. He’s… the reason my family is dead.”

“What? Your…”

Nova nods, pursing her lips, “He hired the assassin. Shot my Mom, Dad, and sister.” Mentioning her long-dead sister made her heart ache. And at the same time, it was odd. She never imagined telling all of this to Magpie one day, and here they were.

Magpie’s eyebrows shoot up, and after a few seconds she utters “oh…”

“Yeah… turns out he kept me ‘cause I was a prodigy. I never knew.”

Maggie’s eyebrows furrow but she doesn’t say anything. The silence draws on longer than comfortable for the two of them.

“Anyway…” Nova clears her throat. “I’ll always carry the guilt of what I could have done. The deaths I could have prevented are on my shoulders. I could run away, and suffer for what I’ve done and didn’t do.” She then smiles, “Or stick around. Stay with the people that care about me. And try to be better now. Make things better. That’s what the Rejects have been trying for the past year and counting.”

“The rejects?”

“Narcissa’s the leader. I’ll give you a fair introduction to them later if you want.”

…

Nova coughs, “Anyway, I guess what I’ve been trying to say is, it gets better. You never know where people that get you, show up. And that more people care about you than you ever realize.

“Y’know, when things to crap.”

###

Nova sends a quick text before her and Maggie leave. It's to heroes in their area, notifying them of their location, the situation, and the pawnbrokers. She trusts them to handle the two fairly.

It didn’t take very long to find The Terror's next planned location once they rummaged through the two pawnbroker’s pockets and found how they had been communicating with The Terror.

And the fact The Terror was actually Oliver Berk. The grin on Maggie's face for being right didn't leave for a while. Nova could only sigh. Of course the amateur villain would keep his identification with him.

The amateurness didn't stop, and his weak security both hurt Nova and made her want to laugh. How could you screw this up so badly?? From there she and Maggie had tracked him down to his next location and ambushed him, making quick work of tying him up.

Maggie holds her lucky bullet in her hand and close to her when she stands against the sewer wall and slides down into a sit. She fiddles with it a little and looks at Nova who is finishing up her report to headquarters. Nova rubs her head to ease her headache as she writes. She types up she has apprehended the villain, their location, and a promise to return to hq soon after denying a ride back.

“...My family was murdered too”

“Hm?” Nova turns to Maggie.

“When I was a baby. I don’t know too much. I was found by the landlord or something.” She holds up the bullet. “I just know this gave me my powers.”

Nova blinks and lets her mouth form an ‘o’ shape. Out of all the things today, this wasn't one she thought Maggie would talk about.

The kid holds the bullet closer to her chest, "This is my power. I don't care what you think about me. What anyone thinks. This power is mine and only for me. It is me. It's… how I survive" she grits out.

Nova breathes out a sigh and shrugs, "I mean… I get that.”

“You do?”

Nova nods, “The anarchists weren’t exactly buddy-buddy with me. Even after the age of anarchy, it’s common advice, you could say, to keep your guard up. Just in case.

"And with hindsight, I was only kept alive by my uncle because of my powers…"

Nova couldn’t help but fidget slightly from Maggie’s persistent attention. That stare. Now that the kid was actually listening it was almost unnerving. The kid’s piercing blue gaze only assisted the look.

“And some shitty things have happened to me. No surprise there. My new friends help me out with that now.”

Maggie’s concentration on what she says breaks the next second, and she snorts, “What are you even suggesting. Getting cheesy friends may have worked for you, but it won’t fix anything for me. We aren’t the same.” Maggie looks away from her with a scowl. “I have nothing. Nothing of my old life. Blurry memories maybe. But no photos. No gravestones. No names.”

Nova pauses and frowns. Maybe sympathetically. She doesn’t really know. “You don’t need those to move on.”

“Says the renegade with photos, and memories, and names, and graves to say goodbye to.”

“I lost most of the photos a long time ago. And,” She raises her finger to emphasize her point, “my sister’s corpse was never recovered so watch your mouth.”

“At least you know her name”

“Will you please just work with me!? I just” Nova breathes in. “I want to hold out an olive branch. Because… you aren’t nearly as alone as you think.”

Maggie stays quiet. Nova fills the space.

“Look, we definitely got off on the wrong foot” She pauses and bites her lip. “Pun, not intended.” Nova ignores the incredulous look Magpie gives her.

“But. I don’t want to see someone else go through what I did alone.”

“We. Are not. The same.”

“No, we aren’t. But pretty damn close, dontcha think?” Nova chuckles lightly, but is met with Magpie’s continued silence. “Yeah okay, that wasn’t funny.”

Nova heads over to where the villain had been tied up and readjusts the knots, she needs something to do with her hands. “We can leave soon and forget this ALL happened if you want. Just know this, I am lucky to have gotten back so much.”

“I could have told you that.”

Nova ignores her. “But for the longest time… I didn’t know I had that much to be returned. I thought everything about my past died that night, aside from my memory. Even my bracelet wouldn’t be as important to me, without that memory. That memory was my drive and it still is.”

Maggie’s quiet when she responds, her overgrown bangs hover over her eyes and shade them. “I tried moving on.”

“Did you?”

“I moved on… by staying alive.” Maggie lets out a breath. “Who cares if they didn’t come back. Or if I have nothing left. It’s me now. Those pieces are dead and I’m the one who’s living.”

“Good. Stay alive. But that living person can’t have any friends? Any support?”

…

“I can’t say goodbye to my sister.”

Maggie looks up at her, “You were telling the truth?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

Maggie doesn’t answer and lets Nova continue.

“They have a gravestone in place, but she isn’t there.”

“They couldn’t find a simple corpse? That is… hilariously incompetent.” Maggie almost deadpans.

“Yeah well, doesn’t change I can’t say goodbye. Or hello. Tell her about my day. About an awful coworker. A competition for kids that… she’d be the same age as. And,” Nova blinks, “I can’t say happy birthday, either.”

Maggie’s eyebrows furrow.

“She… uh… Evie. Would have turned thirteen this week…”

“...thirteen?” The silence could only be described as all consuming. And Maggie’s tone was undecipherable.

“Yeah.”

Maggie only stares at Nova. Her eyes focusing on her like a hawk. In disbelief? In sadness? Nova never would think of empathy to be an emotion Maggie would display before tonight, but she’s been surprised on the contrary before.

Maggie’s lip twitches. Her lips form into a scowl, bringing the rest of her expression with it. Her hackles raise. “Oh yeah. Very funny.”

Nova blinks in confusion. “What??”

“I’m not gonna fall for that.” She pushes herself off the wall she had been leaning against.

“I’m not lying.”

“You’ve done it before, Insomnia.” Nova squints her eyes and Maggie continues, “Twelve years after a home invasion? Murderer on the loose with a gun?! Yeah, as if. You just want to trick me!”

“Why would I do that??” Nova returns Magpie’s volume, “Why would I lie-”

“I am thirteen years old.”

Nova blinks incredulously, “...W-what?

“And whatever sick trick you’re playing on me isn’t funny. I won’t go back to headquarters. You can’t fool me. Is this what they're training Renegades to do now? Fuck with people’s heads?!”

Nova’s mouth remains wide open out of offense, and she has to remember to close it as her expression heats up. She’s speechless from this accusation before she speaks up, “You’re talking nonsense! Why are you- what does-” she flounders to make sense of the conclusion Magpie has come up with “You- You’re thirteen?”

Magpie scoffs, “Yeah. Thirteen. Just short a month after I was admitted to the orphanage. After- …after my family died.” She quiets but keeps her glare on Nova. “But you already knew that didn’t you.”

Nova’s furrowed expression stays put until she digests what Magpie is saying. Her expression slowly lessons and her eyes widen. She steps back.

The thirteen year old blinks, “What?”

“I’m not making this up, Magpie.”

“What do you mean you aren’t making this up.”

“I… I’m telling the truth. I wouldn’t lie about this.”

“Well I’m not lying either.” Maggie intended to spit the truth out but the moment she said it the more it seemed Nova’s words were also ruminating in her head too. Her eyes widen but it doesn’t match Nova’s expression.

Nova’s face pales and her eyes dart to the hand that Maggie grips her bullet with. A… a bullet?

“It can’t be…”

###

Life, has been a nauseating rollercoaster for Maggie. Especially for today. A day she thought wouldn't be stressful for once. Calmer even.

Sure, she planned to snag more than a few trinkets to pawn but today she didn’t want to have to run away from annoying heroes. The ones that get upset with her theft. Frankly, she didn’t want to think about them either. One stop at the food drive was plenty of that interaction.

Maggie didn't think about the heroes that saw her at the food drive and did nothing. The ones who've been in the area enough to know only people in poverty end up here. She didn't think about never seeing Sketch's team once.

Not… not that she'd want to see them! They'd only nag her.

The point is… she didn’t want to run, or get hurt. The last few weeks she's stayed away from ugly fights and for a reason. Her goal is to survive, not get some wound infected and die from a disease.

And yet, she had to run from the annoying Nightmare and was cut up by the latest piece of gossip, The Terror. Who… she also had not been keen on running into. The sting on her cheek and pain from her neck were sour reminders of that failure.

But even when she had been shoved into the sewage, her foot stomped on, Nightmare still helped her. Hell, Nova looked concerned after the second fight.

And she never expected Nightmare to… be nice to her. Like, ever. In the beginning she was just as annoying as before but… Maggie never would have predicted it.

Maggie also never thought she and Nova could work together.

It unnerved her a little when Nightmare told her things that, Maggie would never tell if in Nova's position. Why would Nova trust her with all this information?

Heck, Maggie thought she had it figured out for a moment. That Nova was actually backstabbing and exploiting her knowledge of Maggie’s past to trick her. It made sense.

Her mind was eager to brush aside the last hour. It was all fake, right?

But this.

This isn’t how a fucked up villain would react to being found out. For lying the entire time.

Maggie grips her lucky bullet in her hand.

Today has been a rollercoaster. And Maggie hates rollercoasters.

The silence between the two stretches on for hours. Or a minute. Who was she to tell?

Nova?

Nova’s her… sister?

The thing about Maggie is, she hates hoping. She despises the very concept. When she was younger, she hoped all too much. Too many nights she spent staying up listening to the grownups and their phone calls. Waiting for someone to call, asking for her. Someone to walk through the doors one day, and call her theirs.

Waiting for her sister to burst through the doors, apologizing for leaving her with one big hug.

The very thought makes her nauseous nowadays. How could she have been so naive. Wasted all that time hoping. Focusing on a what if rather than what she could do. She could do so much.

She left.

And now she’s here. And now her sister is here. Well, maybe her sister.

Nova is murmuring something Maggie can’t quite follow, her hand is over her mouth as several emotions flicker across her face. She looks about ready to barf, and Maggie couldn’t blame her if she did. The kid feels ill enough to join her, honestly.

She wants to shut down the possibility all together. That her sister really is gone and she’s not right in front of her, staring at Maggie like she’s seeing a ghost. The hope and trepidation in Nova’s eyes that Maggie stomped in her own a long time ago.

Nova pinches the bridge of her nose and walks over to The Trashbag and hoists the villain over her shoulder. She mumbles something under her breath, Maggie can't make out.

Something grabs Maggie’s hand and she jolts, ripping her hand away and whips her head toward- Nova. Nova’s hand is shaking and she seems to be trying to keep her calm. Upon further inspection, Maggie realizes she’s trembling too. Why is she doing that?

“Maggie…”

Maggie clenches her fist, and lets Nova hold her hand in a tight grip, before exiting the sewers.

###

Nova jumps out of the cab with Maggie close behind, she rushes out a “thankyousomuchsorry!” to the cab driver still frozen from the two renegades and villain that hitched a ride. She makes a mental note to pay them back later.

She sees headquarters' front entrance light up the darkening sky as she approaches. Her head throbs once she walks in and meets the fluorescent lights. Nova unceremoniously drops the villain on the ground and ignores the shocked staff when she beelines for the medical suite. She never once lets go of Maggie's hand.

Her mind notes the sound of heroes telling Mr Berk his rights before they take him away for interrogation. Nova opens the door to the medical suite and the bustle of the front lobby muffles once the door is shut.

Maggie lags behind as Nova reaches the counter, asking for a kinship test.

Nova's breathing feels wrong. She could see from the rise and fall from her chest that she wasn't hyperventilating. But it felt too slow. Every breath was too big. Suffocating her.

The person from behind the counter hands her the box containing the test. She holds it carefully and can only stare. After a moment the person at the desk looks at her in confusion and gets her attention.

"It's just a mouth swab, Sweetie. Don't worry" the person offers her a smile. Nova's cheeks pinken and she mutters a thank you before practically running back to where she left Maggie.

Nova takes another breath. It, is just a saliva test. When it comes down to it, it won't even be painful.

Her eyes catch the labeling. Sibling kinship test.

Her gut twists from the word.

…could Maggie really be…

"What's taking you so long?"

Nova whips her head up to look at Maggie's furrowed expression.

"Ah, nothing nothing. It's fine." Nova opens the cardboard box, the thick paper glowing the box closed tears apart. She presses the flaps aside and dumps the innards onto the small table offered in the room. Maggie eyes the tests with trepidation.

Nova takes a deep breath in, "Magpie"

The thirteen year old looks back at her.

"I… if. This confirms anything. …We don't need to do anything about it immediately. If, you don't want to." Nova hands the tween one of the still packaged swabs. "I don't want you to think… that you're obligated to anything."

The thirteen year old grabs her own sleeve to tug on slightly as she stares at the test. Not touching it.

"...what if it doesn't…"

"Doesn't… confirm anything?" Nova finishes. "...well. Still, you don't have to do anything." Nova rubs the back of her neck "but, feel free to talk to me."

Maggie looks up at her with a skeptical squint. "Why?"

"On the streets, support systems are vital if you don't want to end up dead within a month" Nova smiles. "It could just be a phone number, okay?"

"No, I mean, why do you still want to talk after all the times I stole your bracelet."

"I have a funny feeling you won't be trying that again. Not unless you want the Renegades on your back" Nova shoots the girl a look that says 'right?'. Maggie can't refute that.

From the many years of technological development and the growth of prodigies, some things have taken less time to analyze than before. What would have taken a few days could now receive results in a couple hours or so.

Maggie hesitates before opening the plastic package and retrieving the mouth swab.

An agonizingly long couple hours. Better than the alternative but still an infuriating amount of time to wait for DNA testing results.

Nova convinced Maggie to have the wounds she received by The Terror checked for infection in the meantime.

Though one of the nurses nearby grabbed her as well to be patched up. Maggie laughed at her, and her initial shock and realization of what she neglected to do. It didn't take long for the nurse to finish patching Nova up. Sent back to the cold waiting room soon after…

It was easier to forget what they were waiting on with the distractions.

Nova looks at her phone again. She doesn't unlock the screen but she does view the time. And the texts she's received from Adrian and Tamaya. Both have been caught up in an incident downtown and would be there as soon as possible. Though, she warned Tamaya to wait until Maggie wanted to talk to her. Nova decided against telling Oscar, Ruby, and Danna what happened.

It could be completely coincidental. More doubt settles in Nova's mind the longer she waits.

When Maggie returns, Nova doesn't look at her. She fiddles with her hands, she almost wishes she had one of her inventions or something to do.

Finally, someone calls for them. Nova whips her head up and stiffens. This… is really happening. Her brain feels like it's still trying to catch up to the events around her. She stands up and looks at Maggie. The girl tenses and freezes up.

Nova goes to check the results without her. She could almost hear the quiet sigh of relief.

Someone, with a stereotypical lab coat, on hands her the envelope containing the printed results.

Nova doesn't catch much of the explanation of how the DNA match results were determined, but she appreciates it nonetheless.

She leans against the wall and slowly wills her fingers to open the letter.

It's been a little more than 12 years since her family was killed.

Her hands tremble as she slowly takes the folded paper from inside.

She remembers every gunshot.

BANG!

She remembers hiding in that cramped closet.

BANG!

Nova takes a deep breath.

Evie's crying was cut short with one final…

…

BANG!

She unfolds the paper.

Ace never let her see Evie's bloodied corpse. The last time she saw Evie was when she left her sleeping body to check on her parents. When everything changed.

They never got to see a funeral. Nova never knew what happened to the bodies. Ace never gave up any details on the subject.

Looking at the paper was disorienting at first until her eyes caught onto the letters and began to read. Alleged Sibling was typed at the top of two columns, above "Nova Artino" and "Margaret White".

She keeps her thumb over the results number but the more she looks, the more numbers that match.

Nova moves her thumb and stared at the paragraph beneath the total index.

Her eyes are dragged to the nines in the percentage listed.

DNA testing done to determine siblingship of the alleged siblings. Based on testing results obtained from analyses of the DNA loci listed, the probability of full-siblingship is 99.8%. The likelihood they share a biological father is….

…not a coincidence then

The air leaves Nova's lungs the next second. She couldn't even read the rest before she began to sway. She braces herself against the wall and does her best to lower herself to the ground safely.

Nova took in another breath but it came out as a strangled sob. Her face is wet. When did she start crying?

Maggie's Evie.

Evie is Maggie. Magpie.

Evie's… alive.

How??

Her mind remembers the bullet in Maggie's hand. It… gave Maggie her powers…

She hears Adrian come through the doors before she sees him in her blurry vision. His Sentinel uniform is mostly covering him still.

Nova holds a hand over her mouth and stumbles to her feet.

"Nova-"

Nova runs past her confused boyfriend, who voices his confusion and concern immediately after.

She runs out into the waiting room and her eyes dart around, looking for-

"Nova?"

Nova whips her head to the source of the sound. Her eyes first catch the shiny gleam of the cold blue light reflecting a choppy hair cut, greasy and dark, donned on the thirteen year old.

Evie looks up.

Her eyes are her mother's. A piercing grayish blue. The same ones that sobbed her heart out due to a fever twelve years ago. The little baby girl who's crying was cut off. Cut off by the same gunshot that has echoed in Nova's head since she was six.

"Nova?"

Nova's world spins slightly but she continues to stare. She feels frozen, her hands possessed when she tightly clutches the warm printed paper.

Evie's eyebrows furrow in apprehension, her hackles raising. She stands up. "What? What is it?!"

Nova can only stare.

A beat passes.

Evie backs up slowly and before Nova can say anything, the girl runs out of the room like a startled deer. Shoving past everyone in her way of the exit door.

Adrian's voiced confusion snaps Nova out of it. He tries to say something to her but she can't articulate what exactly. She runs after the kid.

Nova throws open the door and bursts outside, looking around wildly. Her heart is thumping, ready to burst from her chest. She curses her eyes for blurring her vision with streaming tears. She feels sick.

Steps skidding around the corner alert her attention and she follows in haste.

Her breathing is heavy, and she can see each hot breath she pants dissipate into the cold air.

Curses flood Nova's head when whips around her corner and doesn't see the kid. Where…

Her eyes dart around as she catches her breath. She… she couldn't have imagined Evie… could she… is Maggie still in-

Her eyes finally catch a huddled figure in a more obscure section of the wall. If Nova's thoughts weren't running wild, she probably would have caught the kid immediately.

The wall is uneven, a section jutting out, allowing someone to hide right one of the walls. The girl sits next to the large garbage bin. Honestly, it's a half hearted attempt at hiding. Maybe she didn't even mean to hide.

Just needed to get away.

Nova's shoulders relax and she stays where she stands. Nova keeps her eyes away from the twelve year old girl, willing herself to stop trembling.

Nova takes in a shaky breath and squeezes her eyes shut for a moment. She only needs a moment.

The silence is deafening.

Nova wipes her eyes and clenches the printed test results.

"Is…" She starts and stops, clearing her throat. Come on Nova! Be at least somewhat composed about this! "Is that the bullet… the one that…"

That killed you. Killed her. Almost. It almost killed her, now. It almost killed you, didn't it?

"...how would I know." The twelve year old looked like she meant to spit the sentence out, but it came out more exhausted and dim. "I was a baby." The girl holds the bullet tightly in her palm, curling into herself.

Nova's mouth opens and closes for a moment. Magpie's skin prickles when she stares for too long.

Magpie bites, "what?"

"Look. It- … it's hard to go from believing your baby sister was shot and murdered to finding out she's been alive and… well… you"

Maggie weakens slightly and turns her head away…

"Is it disappointing?"

Nova's features furrow after Maggie's question. She responds, with a question. "Is it disappointing that I'm your sister that disappeared?" Nova's voice is sore. This day has been exhausting for the two of them.

"I… I don't know." Maybe it would have been before today. Or if Maggie was still searching for her sister even when she met Nova. "I just thought… I didn't have anyone left…"

Nova sat in silence for a bit, biting her trembling lip, "... Me too."

Nova, uncomfortable with looking down at Maggie, decides to walk over and sit beside the kid. Not terribly close, but close enough that after a long pause, Maggie sort of leans onto her shoulder.

Nova can barely feel it, like Maggie's hovering just the slightest so that she wasn't actually pressing fully against her.

Ready to flee.

Nova doesn't comment. And Maggie speaks up, in a vulnerable tone unlike any Nova had heard from Maggie before. Even compared to tonight's dizzying developments.

Closer to a whisper.

"...you really thought I was dead?"

"Maggi- Ev- '' she breathes out. "...yeah. When I heard the gunshot and her… your crying stopped…" Nova has to stop herself, she purses her lips. She locks her eyes on the lamp hanging in front of the brick wall parallel to them. Studying how it reflects.

"…so. You didn't mean to leave… me? You… you would have stayed?"

Nova looks over, her eyes are wide and she tells herself to not get emotional. Don't. Her head whispers lingering doubts that… this isn't even real. "Yeah… " Nova feels a little breathless.

It certainly doesn't feel real.

Magpie turns away, staring blankly at the same brick wall. The wall behind them feels the same. She blinks, trying to make sense of it all, "so…"

"So?"

"You were here…the whole time…"

"Yeah… Sorry. …that I couldn't have been before"

"Okay…" Maggie hunches closer into herself. "This sucks."

Nova looks over, "why's that?"

Maggie doesn't answer her question. "Do we know for sure that the blood samples matched? Test it again!" Maggie pulls her sleeve down, holding her pale boney arm out to Nova. Nova blanches.

"Wh-what?! Maggie, you know the equipment they have is the best in the city. It's not a mistake." Nova frowned at her. "Plus, they're saliva tests, not blood."

"Well-! Well… …" Maggie purses her lips, holding them shut as her mind thinks and catches up. Nova's mind still hasn't, truth be told. "Then what are we going to do now,"

Nova takes a deep breath, "I don't know." She fiddles with her bracelet, "...Do you want your records updated?"

Maggie blinks, "You have them?"

Nova weakly smiles in a wistful way, "Yeah. The renegades made sure to file them. Let's just say… they felt guilty" she couldn't help but grunt the last part out.

Maggie blinks and looks up, "Really?"

"Yeah. You, uh, wouldn't remember, but Captain Chromium promised our family's safety and… you know how that played out."

Maggie pauses and then huffs, “That’s not surprising” she pauses again to think. “Does that mean… I have a birth certificate?”

Nova sat up a little straighter, “Yeah. Evie Artino…” She wet her lips and wiped her tear stained cheeks, "...twelve years now. They brought her- you home a few days after. I got to meet you at the hospital already. Along with… our uncle."

Maggie frowned. "Ace Anarchy. Lovely family bonus points I guess…"

"He didn't seem so bad at the time."

"That's how they trick you."

"Yeah,"

Maggie just slightly nudges closer to Nova, "what day?"

"The…" Nova opens her mouth only to close it again. "...well. I guess this means happy birthday." Nova's small smile stretches as far as it could on her face. Not much considering the amount of restraint she had to not cry. "Happy Birthday, Evie Artino."

Nova remembers being a kid and ecstatic for her sister's first birthday. She fully planned out the cake and decorations right alongside her mom who had to remind her they couldn't afford to go all out.

She was sad at the time but she was determined to sing super loud for her sister when the day came. And give her even better gifts when Evie gets older.

After the final gunshot, Nova threw all of those hopes away. Burned them to ashes, really.

Maggie frowns for a moment and looks away for a moment to wipe her eyes with her fist. She turns back and without a word, sits her head back to where it had previously been close to Nova.

Nova feels the weight this time.

"I don't know… I don't know what I want…" Maggie thought she knew at one point. She knew exactly what she wanted. To be a little orphan Annie, found by her full family and welcomed with big open arms. It didn't matter who found her. As long as someone found her and loved her.

But now? She's given up on that fantasy for so long that anything remotely similar is… unfamiliar. She can't navigate this. It still… doesn't feel real.

Nova shrugs and says, "That's fair. I don’t really know either” she chuckles softly “Never thought Evie… you could be alive. Much less a prodigy.”

She straightens slightly, not enough to nudge the girl off her arm though. Maggie's (surprisingly) skittish enough that Nova could even say she's like a bird, quick to fly away.

Nova frowns, “I can only imagine what Ace could have done if he knew…” The arm Nova had subconsciously placed around her sister tightens slightly before she reminds herself it’s okay. He’s dead. He can’t use Maggie like how he used her.

Magpie blinks and cringes, “Working for that crusty old terrorist? Pass.”

“You wouldn’t know any different.”

“I grew up in an orphanage.” Maggie grunts, “They aren’t exactly known for their good conditions. I learned that and didn’t know any different.”

Nova sighs, “I know. Were they… bad to you?”

Maggie shoves a hand into her pocket, fiddling with her bullet. “They weren’t good, let's just just say that…”

Nova frowns, her chest tightens and she has the strangest feeling of… protection come over her?

Would it have been different before she knew who Maggie was? Maybe… maybe not.

"What did they do?"

"What do you think? Everyone was either wasted off their arses or busy setting fire to the nearest building out of some petty revenge…" Maggie pauses, "They… uh… somehow never set fire to the orphanage itself. I bet they wanted to."

"I get that. Honey frequently downed bottles of booze when she could."

"I didn't think the anarchists had the money for that sort of thing"

"We didn't. I ran, er, 'errands' a few times"

Maggie blinks, "Wait, you stole??"

"I was an anarchist, kid."

The kid huffs, "Hypocrite."

Nova chokes, "I- that's different."

"Is it?"

"Yes, actually. I'm an- was. Was an Anarchist." Nova coughs. “You were stealing as a Renegade”

“Same difference.”

“I… Whatever.” Nova rolls her eyes. “Drunk bastards raised you?”

"Meh, they don't deserve that much credit."

"Fair." Nova frowns and looks over at Maggie. She notices Maggie tense and returns to the topic, "Anyway, just say the word and I'll pull the strings I need to get your records fixed."

"...thanks" Maggie murmurs, "Maybe later."

Nova rubs Maggie's arm as she relaxes. Nova's head buzzes with questions but she'll save them for later.

Then. Maggie asks. "canIhugyou?" Rushing out the sentence before she could chicken out. Her cheeks pinken ever so slightly.

Nova blanches, "er, Sur-?" Maggie cuts her off and hugs her tightly, squeezing her for a moment. Nova blinks and slowly puts her arms around the 12 year old too. She doesn't even mind the spot on her clothes getting wet from where Maggie has buried her face.

Nova rubs her back and squeezes back too. She presses her lips thinly together and hugs her close. The kid's body weaves with silent sobs. Nova lets the tears fall from her eyes as she rubs her sister's back.

"Hey" She says softly, "You good?"

Maggie nods lethargically, not moving from the hug.

"Do you still want another test done?" Nova's lip twitches up slightly.

"I… don't want to head back inside yet"

"It's getting late"

Maggie makes a noise, it tells Nova she really doesn't care. At all.

"It's warm inside"

"No" Maggie huffs quietly.

"Okay" Nova chuckles and rubs Maggie's arm, "thennnn…. how about we go somewhere else… warmer preferably."

Maggie pulls away a little bit to look at Nova.

"It's your birthday so, how about we head over to a restaurant or something. Your pick." Nova suggests, "We can hang out there till you're ready to talk to everyone else."

"I thought restaurants close earlier than that"

"Kid, I don't sleep. I know a few All Night Open places if your pick closes too soon."

Maggie pulls away completely and fiddles with her bullet in her pocket. "I… don't mind that." She whips her head up. "You have to promise not to make the waiters sing."

Nova blinks and laughs, snapping her fingers, "Darn, there goes my plans!"

Maggie scowls and squints at her.

She sighs dramatically, "I promise I won't."

"Won't what?"

"I won't make them sing" Nova smiles and stands up, opening her phone and sending a quick text. "Everyone inside can wait a little longer now that they know you're breathing. No promises they won't try to sing to you later."

"They're not allowed."

"I'll tell them that." Nova holds out a hand to Maggie, offering to help her up. "Got any restaurant requests yet? Fast food?"

Maggie hesitates and accepts her hand, "...your favorite. Whatever it is…"

"Okay"

###

Nova sets the finished food dishes to the side of their booth's table. She rubs Maggie's arm as the kid breathes in and out slowly. Her eyelids twitch from dreaming. She puts her coat back on Maggie after it slowly slid down.

Their private booth's light flickers from the fancifully decorated lantern. The warm light thankfully gentle to her, albeit dimming, headache. A waiter had offered to find some ice earlier but she declined politely.

Nova's phone lights up again from another text. She sighs and clicks her phone off. They can wait for a little while, she's already explained enough for now. Though she's surprised by their resilience to check up on them. It's been hours since they left.

Her hand plays with Maggie's hair. Moving it out of the kid's face, not bothering too much with some of the tangles. She does her best to keep her thoughts off of how tonight's events will change everything in the future.

Nova is more than content with staying with her sleeping sister, the one that is unconsciously hugging her. On her birthday.

After texting Adrian, he thankfully understood and avoided texting questions, despite the thousands Nova is sure he has.

Someone knocks on a clipboard outside and the booth's curtain opens a little. The waiter waves apologetically and notices Maggie is sleeping before they speak. The waiter smiles and takes the dirty dishes, handing Nova a to-go box like she requested earlier.

Before the server leaves, they put two plates on the table. Both with a slice of chocolate cake. Nova quietly thanks them and hands them the paid check, along with the generous tip.

After the waiter leaves, Nova carefully packs up the remaining food for leftovers without waking Maggie up. Her phone lights up from another text and she sees the time.

Nova pulls out a candle and a matchbox. She sets them both to the side. She grabs her phone and decides to open up her camera app. She takes a picture.

Showing her, the cake slices, and Evie.

She puts out the match and takes a quick picture. Showing Evie, her, and the candle.

…she stares at it. The candle ended up in the frame. A single candle.

She wishes she could've gotten the number of candles accurate to her sister's age, but this was all the restaurant had left. Plus, 13 candles wouldn't fit in a single slice.

Yet, strangely, it almost feels poetic now. One candle for the first birthday they missed. God, now her thoughts were corny. Must have been the Everharts' influence on her.

But she accepts the cringe. And she thinks about herself 13 years ago. Little six year old Nova, excited for her baby sister's first birthday.

Nova loved the idea of celebrating her sister's birthday the exact time she was born. Her parents, not so much, given Evie was born close to midnight. Nova's still not completely sure where she heard the idea from at six years old.

Nova hums a little, and remembers practicing the song they would sing once it was time to. The one she still hasn't sung in a while. She smiles a little.

"Happy birthday… to you"

Nova grabs the candle and places it in the center of Evie's cake slice as she softly sings the lyric. She lights the match.

"Happy birthday to you"

Evie's eyes blink awake lethargically, shifting a little bit to adjust her position. The girl sleepily looks at Nova as the ex-anarchist lights the birthday candle.

Nova didn't need the waiter's assistance after getting permission earlier. Perks of saving the owner she supposes.

"Happy birthday, dear Evie."

She lets out a breath, saying her sister's name with a smile. Nova tucks a few strands of hair behind Evie's ear. Evie tiredly nuzzles into Nova's arm to get closer, but she does keep an eye on the candle as it flickers. She doesn't look at her, but Nova knows Evie is paying attention.

"Happy Birthday to you"

End notes:

#Be warned I've been editing the ao3 version of this much more than the og document #I'll try to get all corrections checked but I may not catch everything #atm I can't access ao3 on my computer so I can't ctrl a my way out of this one #IT IS DEFINITELY BEST TO READ THIS ON AO3 IF YOU CAN #renegades trilogy #evie artino #maggie white #nova artino #fanfiction #renegades fanfiction #leroy flinn #tamaya rae #adrian everhart

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