MEDUSA

     “He would definitely get all soft and mushy over a rescue,” she confirms with a laugh, and she can picture it, his big puppy dog eyes, his sincere little smile. And that decides it, really: she’ll suggest it tomorrow, maybe, see if he wants to. Maybe not immediately—as easy as it seems to have been for Medusa to make space for her snakes, a dog seems like it might require a little more legwork to find space for in the Manor, especially since Danny’s still sharing a room with Lazarus. But it might be nice, to have something to look forward to in the future, the promise of something nice.

She thinks he could use more nice things. She’d like him to have all the nice things in the world, really, surround himself with the kind of softness he’d been denied for so many years by the programming jammed into his head.

     “He’s… doing okay, I think,” she says. They’ve seen a lot of one another, but they’ve also been on their own more and more. He’s been at Dulce’s quite a lot, spending his time with Gabe, trying to make a breakthrough and get his brother back, and while sometimes she goes with him to keep him company, most of the time she figures it’s better for him to have his space, to go alone and let it be just him and Gabe, especially when he knows that he can always ask for her to be there if he needs.

It’s Medusa’s second question that catches her off guard. And Medusa isn’t the first person to ask her how she’s holding up, not at all. But something about the conversation they’ve shared makes her feel like she ought to answer this question with something other than oh I’m fine, finally recovering. Because she thinks Medusa will understand the feeling she’s been having trouble putting into words. 

     “I gotta admit, I feel a little lost,” she says after a moment, shrugging as she says it. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, not having all of that shit on my shoulders, getting a break, it’s nice. But, you know, I had one thing driving me for weeks, something to do, something to focus on. And now it’s over and we’re just as in the dark as we were before, if not more, and I’m… kind of at a loss.”

      “I didn’t realize how nice it would feel to have, like, a purpose. I’ve spent a decade here taking things one day at a time, and now I feel like I’m really missing having something to look towards.” 

Medusa is strangely glad to hear that Danny is doing okay. She didn’t think about him much, when he was Reaper. When he was a mostly absent shell of a person, a damaged thing, a blunt force object. She had been sad for him, quietly, but she hadn’t put too much time into worrying about him. Its differnet now, with Danny coming out into the light. He’s just a boy, it feels like. His body is older than hers is, but she still has the urge to take him under her wing and make sure he’s safe. His body has been used to kill and spy and do a thousand things, but there’s something soft and so innocent behind his eyes. He isn’t like the rest of them, and he didn’t pick this life for himself. He’s someone who needs a gentler hand, she thinks. And someone who needs to be protected. 

Catalyst seems pretty committed to protecting him, caring for him. That much had been true even when he was Reaper, when one of them knew that there was a real person lingering underneith the surface that might come out at any moment. 

She just hopes that he’s taking care of Catalyst in turn. And that Catalyst is taking care of herself. There’s been a lot of weight put on her shoulders lately. Because everyone trusts her, because she’s probably the best of them all. Because shes kind of wonderful in nearly ever way, beloved by those around her.

Catalyst is a little lost, she says. And Medusa is glad that she admits it, instead of giving a mostly true but half hearted platitude about being fine. And Medusa can’t help but smile, just a little bit, at the words that leave her mouth. Because they sound like the words of someone whose finally realising how much they’re worth, how much they can do, and how strange it is to not know what to do next. 

“No, I get it.” She nods her head. “Living one day at a time is fine, it’s nice sometimes. But maybe you need more than that.” More than the daily grind, more than living from one mission to the next. She purses her lips, quietly in thought for a moment. “You know, you were good. Really good, with that purpose of yours. It was nice, to see everyone rally behind you.” 

She hums happily, at the idea Medusa brings up. She’d love to have a lizard, maybe something small to start out with, a pretty little gecko or two—and even better, if they could make space for something bigger in the long run. She’d always wanted a big old monitor lizard she would walk around on a leash like it was a puppy dog. 

     “God, a reptile room is exactly what this ridiculous old Manor needs. Can you picture that? One of the rooms in the back, with the big windows that look out over the garden? A whole bunch of tanks…”

She has to stop herself before she gets carried away with the idea. She doesn’t even know who they’d need to ask for permission to turn one of the old rooms into a cool lizard room, but if it’s White, it’s not happening, given she’s currently almost as high on the fucking shit list as the rogue villains they set out to stop. And thankfully, Medusa moves on to another topic: one that seems way more manageable than converting some old drawing room into a miniature zoo. 

Medusa’s your Danny doesn’t go unnoticed, but Catalyst doesn’t say anything about it, just lets herself feel the quiet little thrill of it, the silent little spark of knowing that someone else has recognized how much she cares about Danny, how much he cares about her. It’s been days, since he first kissed her, and she’s still nowhere near over it, nowhere near over the delighted surprise of it all. 

She pictures it, for a moment: Danny, holding a little tiny kitten, or sitting down with a puppy jumping up on him. Pictures the soft little look on his face, his bright, bright smile. Yeah, she could see Danny with a pet of the more mammalian variety, something cute, and cuddly. Something tactile, and loving, to ground him when he starts to feel overwhelmed. And she knows he still does, still gets overwhelmed sometimes, no matter how much better he’s doing now than he was before, how vast the improvement has been. He’s Danny so often now that she can hardly remember the last time she saw Reaper, and it’s incredible progress, but…

Well, but like Medusa, the world had passed by without his noticing. He’d woken up with no idea where he was, or how he’d gotten there. And she knows it’s still disorienting, and terrifying, that there’s still so much buried beneath the surface that he has to learn to live with. If having the snakes had helped Medusa, then she probably has a point about a pet being something worth bringing up to Danny.

     “There’s an ASPCA shelter in town,” she says, after thinking for a moment. “I know they have dogs and cats they’re always looking to get adopted. Maybe I’ll bring it up, see what he thinks. See if he wants to go take a look.” 

Medusa let’s a soft smile break out across her face. It’s just a gentle thing, slow and certain and right on the border of indulgent. She can see what Catalyst is describing, can see the ways that a room like that would brighten up her own world. Another safe haven for the things that needed it. It would be nice to build something here, to make a mark. It was what Midas would have done, what he had done when Demeter clearly needed a space for herself. He saw the need and he built a Greenhouse, with the prettiest glass that money could buy and gold accents that would catch the light and make her smile. The very idea of leaving a mark on this place is like a hook in the heart. She doesn’t think the idea will ever leave her alone, now. 

“Well now we have to make it happen.” And doing it with Catalyst would be like cementing a friendship. Building a bond up stronger and stronger, until they could claim each other fully. Medusa was sure that one of these days, she would start thinking of Catalyst as her friend just as much as she was Dark Wings. It would be nice, she thought, to feel that kind of ownership over a connection again, to add Catalyst to the list of people she trusted most in the world. 

She watches Catalyst mull over her suggestion, take it all in stride. Medusa thinks that she and Danny are probably good for each other. They seem to click together in ways that Medusa can’t quite understand. Even before he was Danny. Medusa always took a bit longer to fit into place with people. Instant connections were hard for her. She needed time, to build them. The closest thing she had ever come to instantly belonging with someone was her brother. Her Jim. He was probably her soulmate.

“He seems like the kind who would go all soft and mushy over a rescue.” She muses, voice soft as she considers it. She can see it working, see it helping him. “Just remember to thank me when you get to stand around and watch fuzzy adorable animals crawl all over him.” 

She hesitates for a moment, then, and considers everything they’ve been through over the last few weeks. Danny getting pulled into a mess he never asked for, for a club he never really joined. “How is he doing, anyway? After everything, after the tower?” Her eyes narrow a little, and she reaches out, nudges Catalyst softly with her elbow. “How are you doing?” 

The way she tells him he doesn’t need to apologize to her is a little thing, but he finds it means a great deal to have someone tell him outright that they don’t blame him from what’s come to pass. Even if none of the choices in this have been his own, even if his actions nearly a decade ago were somehow the seed planted to lead to this, a well-placed decade long grudge put to action, it’s impossible not to feel guilty for leading to all of this in some small way, to know that what he did to Hourglass has lead him to these choices, choices hurting so many of them. He’s grateful in a way for it that he doesn’t think he can put into words, never so adept at the more emotional statements. So he simply nods for now, as she goes on, offering her own sort of wisdom, too.

He hums in thoughtful agreement, considering her words. It’s been proven true already, of course, it’s only logical. Perhaps that’s the thing that has been forgotten here, though, the thing that’s led them to this situation. Yes, it seems to be White’s decisions that have led it to getting this far, to a point where Hourglass and Judgement are both taking advantage of the unrest for their own personal plots, with no regard to anyone else’s well being, but it wouldn’t have ever gotten that far in the first place if Medusa’s sentiment was one that the people of the Collective actually believed. He hasn’t seen it since he joined, of course, in fact he knows he’s been considered the villain, the monster to many of his fellow members since his acceptance into the group eight years ago. 

There’s no use in lingering on things that can’t be changed, but it does make him wish there was a way to keep anything like this from repeating itself, and finding a way to stop this trouble in its tracks along with it. He’s not sure how possible that is, with the nature of human beings, the specific nature of those who usually find themselves members of the Collective, those who had been shunned, or hurt by society at large, those who have done harm themselves, and whose only choice for a comfortable life is to lean into that. But it feels immensely lucky that he’s discovering there are more people than he believed here willing to see him as something other than a monster alone, willing to understand that the mistakes he made in his past and the harm he’s done is just that, the past. He feels lucky that Medusa is amongst them, that she’s sitting here, offering her support, despite the pain that she’s suffered because of this plot. 

“It seems that’s part of what led to this mess in the first place, seeing each other as the monsters,” he agrees quietly, looking down at his tea, finger tracing the rim of the cup absently. “It’s much too far now to do anything but face head on, though. And do what we can to keep it from happening again, no matter what the outcome. I’m glad that we’ve landed on the same side… Unfortunate for them, though.” That’s the truth, too. Knowing what he does about Medusa, he’d hate to have an enemy in her, and while he knows that his focus is on undoing harm, instead of causing more, he’s willing to fight if that’s what it takes to help end this all.

.

She doesn’t expect Mimic to say anything, when she declines the apology. She might not have known him very well for long, and she might have a lot left to learn, but she knows there aren’t really any words he can give her. Part of her knows it’s appreciated, without him having to say anything at all. She would appreciate it, after all, if their roles in all of this were swapped. If she was the one people held a grudge against, the one people blamed for their own actions. Katherine thinks it would mean a lot for someone to believe in her, for someone to support her. And she means to support Mimic through everything, as much as she can. She’ll be someone he knows will be at his back, there to protect him if anything gets rough. And if anyone tries to stop her from fulfilling this goal, they’ll learn why Medusa used to be one of the scariest bitches around. 

She lets him hum, and consider her words. Mimic seems like the thoughful sort, like there are constantly novels unfolding inside his head. So much unspoken, so much to think about. Entire worlds in there, and she can just see the glint of them behind his eyes. Mimic is a little bit of a wonder to her, as time goes on. The more she looks at him, the more she examines him –– the more she lets him examine her in turn, a mutal openness, in the aim of sharing her powers and preventing a further catastrophy for herself –– the more that she cherishes him. She wonders if other people could begin to loosen up, could begin to see Mimic as something new. 

So many of them have decided that he’s the monster at the end of the book. The problem in their world that needs to be rooted out. He’s the original sin that they’re rebelling against White for, in some way or another. She wants to shake her head at the thought of it, because once again she thinks that they all need to grow up, that they all need to take a long hard look at themselves and the lives that they signed up for. They were bad guys. And back in her day, most people seemed to understand that better. Oh, there were the soft ones. People like Spencer, who couldn’t handle too much blood and too much teeth and too much violence. But even they understood what they had comitted their lives to, even Spencer didn’t judge too harshly. Maybe it was just a difference in the world now, maybe it was the cloesness of what had happened with Mimic. She didn’t know, she couldn’t understand. But it was a vendetta she would never be able to support. Personal revenge was one thing, but trying to take the whole world down because you had been wronged was another. 

She lets herself smile, a little savage, at his words. “Unfortunate for them.” She echoes, with a hint of a smile. She wouldn’t have messed around, if she was looking for revenge. She would still kill the Morrigan now, if she saw her. Or at least she would try to. Medusa wasn’t the kind of person who wasted time, or who needed grand master plans.. When she wanted something done, she did it. “I’m glad we’re on the same side too,” She says, after a long moment. “You’re much more fun as a flesh and blood human being than you would be as a statue.” 

They card their fingers through her hair as she talks, enjoying the newfound closeness again as they settle into her bed. Her words make a little home in their chest, warming it with the fondness and the idea of a future they now had. They shared in her want to stay in the manor a little longer, even though they’d been living there for a decade already, they don’t like the idea of leaving it now, when so much was still uncertain with Hourglass and Judgement. If they were going to leave this place, they wanted to leave it knowing it was in good hands, and not in jeopardy of falling apart. 

“I like that idea,” they nod subtly, before leaning forward to brush a soft kiss against her lips. Their own lips soon curve into a smile though at her next words. “I thought that was just assumed,” they chuckle quietly, “I don’t think she’d even let me leave this place without promising first that she had free reign to come over whenever she wanted.” 

It’s a nice future, this one that they’re slowly building with one another as the weeks go on. And they want that future, desperately, and its the first time in some time where they feel the desperate urge to finally have something of their own for once, instead watch everyone else around them find their own separate futures. 

Pulling the blankets around the two of them, they nuzzle further into her space, their hand returning to the dark locks of her hair once they do. “Maybe the girls will finally get used to me, once I’m around more,” they say quietly, voice weighted with exhaustion as they nod their head back to the tank of snakes behind them. 

“Or at least quit eyeing me like an all you can eat buffet.” 

The feeling of Dark Wing’s fingers in her hair is one of her favourite things in the world. It makes her feel settled, perfectly close to them. It’s intimate in a way she can’t help but love. And her whole body feels flushed with an easy warmth, an easy affection. The shitshow of the day will hit her later, will destroy her in waves, she’s sure of that. But she’ll have something to hold onto to pull her through the dark and toward the land of the living again. She’ll have this love, the feeling that feels like it’s protecting her and redeeming her and keeping her safe. Her heart clenches a little bit, and she just wants to hold on to this feeling for as long as she can, for as long as they’ll keep her. 

Katherine smiles, just a little bit, and mirrors the nod that they give her. She returns the kiss, gentle, slow, and manage another smile at the words that come out of their mouth, savoring the low sound of their chuckle. 

“We’ll get somewhere with a lot of room for her.” She says, voice slow, with a nod. She can imagine that, this gentle life that might unfold someday in the future. Katherine is happy to take her time with it, as long as it’s on the table. She knows that Dark Wing isn’t ready to leave just yet, and she’ll wait for as. long as they need. As long as they want the future with her, she’ll be happy. They can build it together, with room for a family, and room for all of their friends to visit. They can be a safehaven, for the people that they love. That’s the future that Katherine wants more than anything. 

She warps her arms around them, when they nuzzle closer to her. It’s a half protective movement, half desperate for someone to hold on to. She feels settled, knowing that they’re here in her arms, their fingers in her hair, their breath puffing easily across her skin. More intimate than they’ve ever been without being in the middle of sex. 

They watch her closely for a moment, as they wait for her response, still uncertain if they’d made a mistake in asking the question. She doesn’t seem mad at them, once she does begin to answer them, and after a moment they see a hint of catharsis settle into her frame. After removing their own uniform, they pull out a pair of lounge pants they’d stashed away in one of her drawers before joining her on the bed, situating themself closely to her as they do. 

It sounded nice, this home she tells them about. And they’re sure it’s still out there somewhere, probably occupied by a new family, one that grew up in it instead of Katherine and Ozy. Part of them wants to try to hunt it down, but the other half of them thinks that it was better to leave that dream with her and Ozy. Ozy would always be a part of their story, but they think it might be better for them to find a new future for themselves, rather than live out the one she’d hoped to have with another. 

“I’ve never lived in a house,” they confess, “not a traditional one anyway. I grew up in an apartment with my mom, then lived on a bus for a while, before spending some time in a jail cell, and then found myself living here.” They aren’t sure where exactly they see themself living after their time in the manor was over, but really, they were willing to live anywhere as long as Katherine was happy. 

“I think I’d like somewhere out in the middle of nowhere though,” they add after a moment, before leaning back on the bed, shifting themself so that their wings splayed out over the side of it. “Somewhere where I could actually roam around a yard, or even give my wings a good stretch without worrying about who could see.” 

Glancing over to her, they brush their hand lightly back and forth over her arm. “What about you?” They ask. “Do you still want to live some place like that house in Craftsbury?”

Medusa leans into Dark Wing’s space like it’s second nature. Lets her body gravitate toward them naturally, yearning for the warmth of their body, for their hands and the brush of her skin against theirs. She’s been touch starved for a long time, she thinks. The first few months of her return had left her cold in a way she was still recovering from, still unlearning. But now she could reach out and touch someone whenever she wanted.

Dark Wing shares with her an admission. They never lived in a house like she did. But not many people had, she supposes. An apartment, a bus, a jail cell, and then here. It was different than her childhood, in the gilded walls of her childhood home, lavishly decorated and built for high society. She’d been a little lady, a nice decoration for those who visited, a girl who was meant to be seen and not heard. Like a statue, even then. She’d gone from Lancaster House, to the war, bloody and dirty on the front lines. And then back here, to the Manor, to the home she would live in for the rest of her life.

 They say that they would like somewhere, out in the middle of nowhere, somewhere with room to be whatever they wanted to be. Stretch their wings, feel the freedom. She wants to give them that, if they do break out on their own. She wants to give them all the space in the world, wants to build a safe haven for them where they never have to worry about what people might see, or say, or think.

“I think I would.” She admits, slow. “Somewhere different, somewhere just for us. Maybe not right now, but soon, eventually.” It feels good to admit it, feels like a step forward. “I still love it here, the Manor. But it’s so full of ghosts I don’t know if I’ll ever really be able to let go, fully. And I -- I want to let go.” 

It’s a simple thing to be honest with her. Even before he was in the Collective, Mimic never found it very easy to form those sort of deeper, more emotionally honest relationships. Over the years, he had found a way to use his powers to make it easier to read other people, and to therefore provide what they wanted from him, to have something closer to those easy friendships than he might’ve managed had he not realized that he possessed such power in the first place. That didn’t make it simple, though. After what he had done, why he had ended up in the Collective and not rotting in a cell, or worse dead, it was simpler to isolate, to keep at a distance since most people had a picture of him painted in their mind already, one that didn’t lend itself well to things like friendships, or romance. And he got along just fine despite that, finding the few people he could be slightly more honest with.

But even then, it had taken time to get to this level of vulnerability with others. He can put it down to the way she had asked him to learn her powers, and the openness that they’ve given each other to do that, ultimately providing something even deeper than just the ability to help understand power, and protect against it. When you’ve offered so much of yourself up to someone, and have been met with understanding, it’s easy to offer a little more. 

Still, this is something he can hardly imagine himself. He hasn’t felt that sort of love before in his life, and anything that came close in the past still couldn’t compare to what Medusa has gone through, both before and now thanks to the horrifying resurrection business. Even if he can’t imagine how hard it must be, he finds it easy to feel that pain for her. “With good reason. I think it’s only fair that that would get into your head in a way that’s impossible to shrug off so easily,” he says quietly as she sits down near him.

He lets out a little hum of agreement. None of it should have happened at all, that’s a certainty. These old wounds being reopened and then perverted into something that’s hurting even more people isn’t something that should have been allowed to get this far. And now there’s no stepping back from all of the damage that it’s caused. It makes him hope even more so that he can do something about it. “Yes, it was. Of course, in the absolutely surface level, things went as smoothly as they possibly could. We didn’t lose anyone, and we managed to take a fair number of undead into our care, as well as defectors, but the emotional wounds run deep from this whole ordeal. And I’m afraid they’ll only continue to worsen until this is over once and for all,” he shakes his head. “I’m sorry that you were forcibly brought into all of this. That he was.”

...

Talking to Mimic might never cease to be kind of a wondrous thing. She regrets not doing this sooner, not reaching out and asking for what she had a year ago instead of months ago. To think she could have had this easy kind of connection so much sooner. But then again, Medusa a year ago had been mostly made up of sharp edges and a broken heart. She probably wasn’t in any state to open herself up to the cold study of someone else, to the kind of searching experience that allowed Mimic to get a handle on her powers. Even allowing Sebastian to be her friend, back then, had felt fraught and delicate. But she still should have reached out to Mimic sooner, considering how similar they were, considering the friends they had in common and the entire nature of their personalities. It should have been obvious that they would click in more ways than one. 

She’s grateful for him now, grateful for the fact that she found him here, that she’s allowed to sit and talk with him for the time being. He takes her admission in stride, accepts the pain that she’s been feeling with little fanfare. And she enjoys how normal it feels to admit it to him, now normal his response allows her to feel. She doesn’t get the impression of pity, that he’s walking on eggshells around her still relatively recent heartbreak. It’s fair that she’s hurting, and he gives her the permission she needs to let the pain linger in her chest, accept it for what it is and not as a weakness that needs to be crushed and expelled out of her body in whatever way that she can manage. Medusa nods in her own agreement, gives a small and thankful smile when his words have finished. 

Her heart twists a little bit, at his words. There was certainly a great deal of emotional trauma going around the Manor right now. Medusa didn’t understand all of it, didn’t know why Fortune Finder had such haunted eyes, or if Prodigal Son was okay after the fight. But she does know that it must have been hard for them all. And she knows it must have been hard for Mimic, more than most people. She can hear the real regret in his voice, when he speaks about everything that happened, all the people who had been dragged into a mess they had no part in.

“I don’t need you to apologise for any of that, Mimic.” She says, and she finds that she really means it. She doesn’t want it from him, and she doesn’t need it. “I wish he’d been left out of it too, but it’s not your fault someone decided to literally dig up the dead, just to make a point.” She swallows, and stops to think about it all for a second. Strangely, she remembers something Oppenheimer said to her once, back in the old days. “We’re all someone’s villain. Someone’s monster. It just gets messier when we start thinking of each other that way. But they’re ours, now. And we’re theirs.”

She turns her attention away from the snakes and back to Medusa as the woman finally abandons her vanity and gets up to come over to the tank. She looks at the snakes with such a warm fondness, it seems all of a sudden like it would be impossible not to like Medusa, not to want to be friends with her. And for a second, Catalyst laments that she didn’t think to do this sooner, that she didn’t become friends with Medusa straight away; because it seems obvious. The same way it had with Black Paladin, the second she got over her weird hang-up that had been totally unrelated to him. And she’s not sure when, in the ten years she’s been here, she stopped trying to make friends with each person who walked through the Manor doors, the way she once had. 

But she’s glad that, if anything, all of this shit with Dr Judgement has given her an excuse to spread her attention out a little wider, to start making friends beyond the core group of people she’s called her own for so long. Because she says she loves the Collective, and that doesn’t mean she has to like every single one of them, but it’s been a good feeling to move in that direction: to stop picking on Fortune just because he’s a bitch, to start to mend the rift between herself and Dulce.

     “I’m sure they can’t help but recognize their natural prey when they see those wings,” she jokes lightly, at the mention of Dark Wing. And the snakes in the tank have clearly noticed Medusa’s sudden presence beside them, both of them beginning to shift and move in their tank as she coos at them. She had no idea snakes could be so affectionate, but it makes sense for someone who calls herself Medusa. 

     “I don’t know why I never thought to get a pet before,” she muses. “Maybe it’s the whole… college dorm set up of the early tiers, having a roommate and stuff. Never seemed like an option. But obviously these ladies get along just fine.” 

“Of course they can’t,” She muses, wrinkling her nose up as she smiles at the girls, as they scent the air around them and seem to thrive in her presence. “I felt much the same way, at the start.” It’s a silly joke, and only a small one. But it feels nice, the lighthearted air around them, how easy it feels to stand here with Catalyst. “They’ll learn not to try and eat them alive someday.” 

She wondered for a moment if Catalyst ever thought of leaving. She could easily get her own place, they all made enough money for it. Somewhere bigger, somewhere with more space to grow. But she looks at Catalyst, and sees something a lot like how Medusa used to be. She thought she was a lifer, once. That she would grow old inside these walls, that her and her family would never leave. Why would they, when they were so cosy there together, safe inside the walls? Catalyst seemed like she was the same, like the Manor was her home. Maybe she would grow up and grow out of it someday, like Medusa had started to, but there was no rush. They could have everything they wanted right here.

“You should get something,” She says, and she sounds… practically enthusiastic about it. She thinks having a pet, a companion who won’t walk away from you, has helped her more than a lot of other things have. “There’s plenty of space in the manor. We could commandeer another room and start a reptile house.” And she smiles, about the idea, considering it.

She pushes the door open as soon as she’s invited to and, for the first time, takes in Medusa’s room. It’s not what she expected. In her mind, the whole place was made of marble, stone pillars accenting the walls, like a hall of statues. Which is silly, she knows: there’s no room in the architecture of the building for there to be columns in the room next to hers, but it’s still odd to think that the room she shares a wall with has been this much of a mystery to her all this time. No, there are no marble columns, no stone floor. Some nice furniture, some of it clearly pulled out of storage, vinate-y pieces that she guesses aren’t so much vintage as they are Medusa’s, or, are vintage in the same way that Medusa is vintage. 

And there are two snakes—big, beautiful snakes, in a tank on one side of the room, basking peacefully under a heat lamp, gorgeous girls contentedly relaxing in their little home, and she makes a bee line for them, for something to do while Medusa finishes up with her nails and Catalyst adjusts to the fact that it feels way less weird, already, to hang out with Medusa, than she thought it might.

     “God, they’re pretty,” she says, crouching down to look through the glass of the tank. “I mean, they’d absolutely eat Daydreamer alive. He’d lose his shit, no fucking question about that. Or he’d panic about it and suddenly they’d be ferrets instead or something stupid. But god, look at them…”

One of them sticks its tongue out, sensing the air at the unfamiliar presence nearby, and then lazily raises its head to look over at her, and she beams a little.

     “Hi there,” she coos in its direction. And then, to Medusa, rather than to the snake, she adds, “My brother had snakes, when I was a kid. I was more of a lizard person, but I always liked them. What are their names?” 

Medusa can’t help the wide, genuine smile, that blooms over her face as she takes in Catalyst’s reaction to the two snakes that have been inhabiting her room since she made her return to the manor. She had pets like them, back in the 1950s. It was one of the things she reestablished about herself, to make it feel normal, to make it feel like there was a life worth living. It was proof that the world still needed her, that she could have some of the things she still expected. 

She missed the old girls, she missed the way that her brother would come into her room and coo at them. She missed the way Midas would frantically giggle, when one of them curled its way along his arm. The half joking inquiry that had left his lips, about if they were particularly venemous. It was nice, now, to see Catalyst looking so happy about it, to hear that Catalyst thought that they were pretty. 

They were pretty. They were lovely creatures. Beautiful. Oddly affectionate, as far as snakes went. It helped, at the start, for her to not feel so lonely. And now Catalyst was something that helped as well. An easy kind of company.

“They’re beautiful.” She agrees, her voice tinged soft. “I would have been furious, if Daydreamer turned them into something else. We would have had a very pretty new statue for the front lawn.” 

     Medusa’s room, a week or so after the Tower attack, evening, @medusxa​

When Medusa had been the hot scary lady who had basically time-traveled from the 1950s, Catalyst had thought she was cool as hell, but hadn’t gone out of her way to try to make friends. Medusa hadn’t seemed interested in friends, back then, and Catalyst could hardly blame her, given her whole… everything. When Medusa, not all that long after that, had been Dark Wing’s casual fuck buddy, it had seemed weird to try to rectify the not-being-friends thing, given that they were her best friend and she didn’t want to make Medusa feel like anyone was trying to make things get serious. 

Now, though, that Medusa and Dark Wing are an honest to god thing, she’s run out of excuses for not being friends with Medusa, and she’s fucking grateful for it, because she thinks Medusa is too fucking cool to not be friends with. Everything that had happened, in the weeks leading up to the Tower, had helped: Medusa had been an invaluable resource, when it came to planning, thanks both to her familiarity with maybe a half dozen of the zombies they were likely to be facing, and to her general angry drive to kick some fucking ass. The two of them had spent more time together in the handful of weeks leading up to all of that than they had in probably the entire handful of years that Medusa had been awake again. 

Now that it’s all over, now that things are starting to go back to—well, not normal, but at least a little less high-alert—she figures it’s time to make good on all of that, and finally be friends with Medusa. Which brings her knocking on the bedroom door directly next to hers, one evening, hip leaning against the wall between their rooms.

     “Medusa? It’s Catalyst. Dark Wing said that you said that it would be cool if I came over to see your pet snakes.” 

...

Medusa has settled somewhere just outside of her old anger, lately. It’s still there, when she thinks about the Tower, when she thinks about the Morrigan. But she could rest easy now that Ozymandias was back where he belonged, safe and sound inside his grave. She had been able to tell his daughter –– The other Katherine, that her father was once again at rest. And it had helped, a little bit, to calm her down. She hadn’t failed him, after all. She had followed through on the promise she made and seen it all through to the end. She still wanted to kill Morrigan, but it wasn’t an all consuming feeling anymore. 

Of all the people to come knocking on her door, she doesn’t expect it to be Catalyst. Medusa, until recently, couldn’t even have started to call them friends. They barely spoke to one another, outside of general pleasentries, before they started planning the rescue at the Tower. But then Catalyst had questions, and Medusa had the answers. She knew more about those Zombies who had risen from the dead than anybody else that Catalyst could ask. And Medusa has to admit that she was thankful for the chance to spend some time with Catalyst, to get to know her. Catalyst was kind of wonderful, and Medusa liked wonderful people. She was exactly the kind of person that Medusa would have gravitated toward back in the old days. 

She doesn’t expect Catalyst to come knocking again, but she feels a swell of something in her chest. Relief, maybe. Because accepting her life here means she should probably make friends. And getting genuinely serious with Dark Wing means she should definitely make friends with Catalyst. Probably with Lazarus, too. She’d been depending on Sebastian all this time, the only one in the Collective she would actually have called a friend up until a few months ago. But it was time for that to change. So Catalyst is a welcome interruption to her solitude. 

“The door’s open,” She calls out, from her perch at her vanity, something she pulled out of storage. She’d been busy painting her nails when Catalyst came calling –– a nice way to waste half an hour of her time, and she wasn’t about to smudge the half-finished work just to open the door. “Come on in.” 

And she smiles, when Catalyst comes inside, a warm smile. Settling in to the familiar routine of getting to know someone. “It’s about time someone took an interest in the girls. I thought they’d never make any friends.” 

As she goes to slip her fingers between their own they can already see her answer. And to be honest, they couldn’t agree more. That night seemed to have lasted a damn century somehow, between just finding their way to the Tower, to the fight with Ozy and Oppenheimer, and then eventually them and V carrying Ozy back out. They’re glad it went as smooth as it did, all things considering, but they’re easily the most tired they’d ever been. 

“Of course,” they reply quietly, before leaning forward to brush a soft kiss against her forehead. Giving her hand a small squeeze, they lead her up the stairs, grateful once again that they manage not to run into anyone before finally reaching her room. 

Once they’re inside, they let out a long sigh before beginning to tear off the various layers of their uniform, only struggling slightly when it came to lifting their wings up enough to slip off the layer that wrapped around their shoulders. 

“When you were here before,” they find themself asking, once they freed themself from the top half of their costume. “Were you still living here in the manor? Or had you and Ozy found your own place?” 

They’re not sure if it helps- talking about Ozy so soon after they last saw him, so they step carefully into the conversation, watching her closely in case she gave any indication she’d rather avoid the topic. 

It’s funny to think that a year ago, she would have pushed Dark Wing away. She would have hated this, feeling so weak in front of them. She could have gone through hell in those early days of being back here, and she wouldn’t have sought them out. She wouldn’t have sought anyone out. Medusa had resigned herself to suffering in silence for the rest of her life, coping with things as best she could, closing herslef off to the world and just getting through it, until her life ended too and she could be done with it all. But now, she’s glad that they’re here. She’s glad that she has someone, a new family that she can lean on when things are awful and the world is working against her. 

Dark Wing pulls her in, and presses a gentle kiss to her forehead. It’s such a soft thing, she lets out a sigh at the feeling of it. It feels, with every moment, like they love her. And she couldn’t be happier that they’re here. 

She’s devastated, she feels like heart heart has been ripped apart again, but it isn’t something that can’t be fixed. They’re grown ups, made of flesh and blood, and at the end of the day even a broken heart will stitch itself back together with time and patience, and with enough care to encourage the healing. So she lets them lead her up the staris, to the comforing enclosed space of her bedroom. 

She only breaks away to strip off her costume, push her hair back away from her face. She freezes, a little bit, at their question. But it’s something she can shake off, quickly, pulling an oversized tshirt on and folding her clothes. “No, we still lived here. We had a bigger room, though.” She finally says. “I –– I liked it here, and it’s where Jim was, so...” 

In a way, the past several days have mirrored his first few days at the manor, which only feels appropriate, considering the context of everything that’s going on around them. He’s felt it was the best course of action to keep a low profile, even lower, perhaps, than usual, which is a feat in and of itself, since he keeps to himself mostly anyway. But it’s been simple enough, most of the others thoroughly preoccupied with the aftermath of the events at the Tower, understandably so. He’s glad that the rogue villain defectors are staying far from the manor, making it a bit easier to fly under the radar, but he’s acutely aware of what’s happened, of course, that they all are under watch by White and those loyal to her just by virtue of having aided in the fight. He has no desire to risk his position here, of course, but it had been a simple choice, to agree to Catalyst’s plan and do what he could to help things go smoothly, which he thinks he succeeded in. 

Between that, and the reminders he’s been given of his own part in things, nearly a decade later, old wounds open and festering again, coming face to face with someone he had killed, even accidentally in his selfishness, he’s finding it hard to focus. Sebastian has served as a nice distraction, working through what had happened with Hyde during that night, finally facing down the reality of the more fluid boundaries something he’s glad to be preoccupied with, not to mention the other part of things there, but that doesn’t make it any easier to quiet his thoughts when he’s alone.

And he’s alone now, down in the kitchen to have a cup of lavender jasmine tea to try to soothe his mind into winding down for the night. It’s easier said than done, of course, when his mind seems intent on replaying the moments with Tempest, both recent and a decade old, over and over again, despite how far removed he had managed to get before this started up again. The other thought there, the idea of finding a way to undone some of the harm he’s caused running through his head, considering all of the different combinations of powers he might be able to use to do just that.

He’s deep in those thoughts, tea untouched, when he hears someone enter, and looks around. And he’s never been so glad to see Medusa, to see someone who he thinks would perhaps understand the conflicted feelings, the regret and acceptance, a paradox full of truth for him. Knowing what he knows of what happened to the others in the Tower, too, Mimic thinks she could likely use some of the understanding they seem to share, too. 

So when she asks for his thoughts, it’s not even a consideration to offer a lie, or shut down the conversation. In fact, he thinks this might help them both, to be honest here, too. “I’m finding it difficult to stop thinking about the Tower…as I’m sure you are, too, although in an entirely different way,” he says, voice quiet, barely disturbing the quiet of the kitchen. “How are you, after all of that?”

.

Mimic doesn’t seem to mind her presence in the room with him. If she’s reading his face right, he might actually be a little bit happy to see her there. And that makes something in her stomach settle, because it makes her realise that she’s returned to a state in her life where she can walk into a random room in the Manor and find a friend, someone who might want to sit with her, someone who might enjoy her company. That’s a comforting thought, another reminder that her life is slowly but surely reparing itself, that she’s becoming a real member of this society. 

She grabs a teacup, while she waits for Mimic to settle on an answer. He’s honest with her, she can hear that in his voice. And it makes her ache a little bit. Because they’ve all been worrying about the same stuff the last few weeks. The Tower, the guardians, the stolen dead. But she imagined it was different for Mimic, whose name had been thrown around far too much lately. She nods her head in a slow agreement, because she understands it completely. 

She takes her time, considering how to answer his question. It isn’t that she doesn’t want to, she just needs a second to get her own head on straight, to catalogue the endless noise of the feelings in her head. There were different periods on her life where she completely shut herself down to things like emotions, where she saw herself as too strong to need to deal with the smushy human feelings that tried to invade her. But she hadn’t shut herself down this time. It was healthier, probably, to actuall process everything that had been going on lately.

“A little raw.” She says, because she’s already jumped the shark when it comes to being honest with Mimic. They had their supernatural heart to heart, she’s pretty sure that there’s no point putting on a brave face and trying to look like nothing is really affecting her. “Metaphorically letting go of one of the great love’s of your life is all well and good, but actually having to re-bury them is something that can kind of fuck a girl up, for a while, I think.” 

It’s rare, Medusa thinks, to find Mimic out in the wild these days. It was strange to think that she might actually have missed him. It would be wrong to say that they had been real friends, over the last year. No, up until the last few months, Medusa and Mimic might as well have been strangers. She had been too preoccupied by herself to make friends with anyone at all. The closest she got, aside from Sebastian and Hyde, before she started branching out was Dark Wing. And they were certianly more than friends now. 

But she had asked Mimic for help, and he had offered it to her. And with the help came... the strangest kind of understanding. Someone seeing right into your heart, right into your mind, the depths of your soul and the dark edges of your powers. Mimic was special, because he could look in her eyes and know her in a way that so few people did, these days. And she had found a kindred spirit in him, when she returned the gaze. 

Even without the empthay that let him do his job, use his powers, she thinks that he would understand her. The more violent, bloody edges. They were one of the things she liked in him. He was a man who had gotten his hands dirty, and she was somone who could never blame him for that. It was why she coudln’t truly hold the past against someone like Tartarus, either. Everyone, at the end of the day, would do what it took to grow and survive. 

And besides, they were all villians. She didn’t know what the others honestly expected.

The point is, that when she sees him, she feels a flood of real happiness. Real relief, to see him mostly well and in public. The kitchen was deathly quiet, but there he was. So she turned off her planned path and entered the room instead, setting the kettle on to boil so she could make herself a cup of tea. She was planning to slip some whiskey into it, to lull her off to sleep. 

“Penny for your thoughts?” She asks, voice light. Something that can be brushed off if he wants privacy instead of company. 

time / location : manor, following Tower event

status: closed to @medusxa​

By the time they finally get to the manor that night, every muscle in their body aches, and their wings are hanging loosely enough that they’re dragging across the gravel of the driveway as they near the manor’s front door. They’re torn between crashing the minute they get inside or bathing, instead though, they continue to focus the majority of their attention on Katherine, whose fallen quiet again ever since they left Ozy back at the meet-up point for Lazarus to handle. 

“You want me to grab anything from the kitchens?” They ask her quietly as they open the front door, grateful that White wasn’t waiting for them on the other side, ready for an explanation on just why they all seemed to have collectively decided to play hero that night. Those questions would no doubt come later, they know, but for now they’re just grateful to put the night behind them first.

“I’m sure Jay has some leftovers stashed in the fridge if you’re hungry.” 

Glancing down at her, they rub their hand slowly across her back, giving her the freedom to do whatever in the hell she felt up to doing in that moment. 

She’s exhausted. Every inch of her. It’s a bone deep kind of weariness, the kind born from more than just physical excertion. They fight hadn’t even been a hard one, in the grand scope of things. So many of their friends had ended up far bloodier than her and Dark Wing had ever been in danger of. But sill, the day has rubbed open some of the raw wounds in her heart. 

It isn’t the kind of pain that can destroy her, even though a few months ago it might have been. She has other things to hold on to now, after all. Someone by her side, even when she falls into the quiet lull of grief, words failing her while the team cleans itself up and ties up loose ends. 

She doesn’t think about much, as they walk up to the manor. She allows the exhaustion to make her a little bit numb, just a little bit. Not enough to cut the world out, just enough to carry her through to the end of the day, back toward her bed. 

And she offers Dark Wing a smile, a weak one. But a warm one, too. Because she’ll never stop being warm for them, she imagines. They’ve earned that from her, along with her trust, and her faith, and as much of her heart as she has left to give to people. Every inch of what she has is theirs now, more or less. 

cw: violence, neck snapping, zombie death, blood

It all happens so quickly. One moment they’re looking over to Katherine, checking to see how she was faring in her own fight, and the next she’s standing between them and Ozy, trying to protect them from her former lover’s decaying touch. Even though they know she was far stronger than them, they can’t help but feel their heartbeat pick up when they see Ozy reach for her, his hand ghosting over the curve of her cheek before it finally touches it. They nearly jerk her away from the touch, but she seems confident Ozy wasn’t going to hurt her, and in the end her confidence seems to pay off. 

It isn’t until that realization hits, that the Ozy standing before them now had regained some fragment of his humanity, do they realize this was their window to finally subdue him. Stepping away from Katherine, they slowly walk over to where their stun gun lay on the ground, and look over to her briefly to make sure she was okay with them doing what they were planning to do next. Once her confirmation is given, they carefully step behind Ozy, whose attention was so stolen by Katherine, he didn’t seem to register what Malik was doing in the interim since Ozy’s eyes locked with Katherine’s. 

Looking over to her, they check one last time that she was ready for what was to come next, before they fire two shots into Ozy’s side. He drops instantly at the second shot, and Malik swoops in to help catch his weight before he hits the floor. Once Malik has a good hold of him, he looks back up to Katherine, their lips turning into a weak smile now that their grisly task was completed. 

“We should head-”, they begin to say until suddenly they’re interrupted by the sounds of fighting from out in the hallway. They wonder briefly if it’s Covert, but the fight sounded far more brutal and heavy-handed than one they would have expected Covert would have found himself in. 

Still holding on to Ozy, they brace for whatever battle would soon find its way to them, as the sounds of the brawl grow closer. Soon enough, a body comes crashing through the door, it’s form rolling into the room. They don’t recognize the person at first, although their costume screamed 80s superhero. It’s just as the body begins to stir, when suddenly the doors swing wildly open again, and a blur of motion races into the training room and towards the undead hero. 

The resulting collision ends with the sickly crunch of bone as the blur of motion slows to reveal V, and his foot coming down hard on the hero’s neck while his hand gripped their head upright, resulting in the hero’s body going limp immediately. 

It’s a shockingly violent sight, despite the nature of the night so far. But it wasn’t the violence necessarily that was shocking, more so the person dealing it. They’d seen V fight before, and knew he used his speed to make his blows particularly devastating, but this violence was far beyond what they’d ever seen him display before. 

V doesn’t seem to notice they’re in the room at first, as he doubles over to catch his breath. He looks like absolute shit, his hair sticking to his forehead, drenched in sweat, and his clothes were splattered with blood in varying places. He looks like he has had to fight tooth and nail through every floor of that place just to get as far as he’s come. 

“V” They say after a moment, quietly so as not to alarm him too much.

They can see V’s shoulders sag the moment he hears their voice, before he turns to look at them, revealing his face half splattered with blood as well. HIs shirt had been cut open on various spots too, as though someone had come at him with a blade, he seemed to have a few slash marks from the weapon used, but nothing looked too serious, thankfully. 

V looks between the three of them breathlessly for a moment, gaze drifting from Malik, down to Ozy, and finally over to Katherine before he lets out a shaking breath. They wish they could give him more time to collect himself, they’d known V for a decade now, and could see how much he was fighting off not falling apart at the sight of his salvation. But that has to wait until later, and knowing V, they know he’ll understand. 

“Can you help me carry him?” They ask instead, before nodding their head down to Ozy. They’re only halfway through the question though before V begins walking over beside them and slings one of Ozy’s arms around his neck. 

“The way back to the elevator should be clear,” he says quietly before looking over to them, and gives their arm a small squeeze as they help redistribute Ozy’s weight. 

They nod their head quickly once she’s made her decision, giving them the task of subduing Ozy while she took on Oppenheimer. They were more than ready to take on whichever one she chose for them, and so they’re not taken off guard in the slightest when she hands them Ozy. They don’t know enough about Oppenheimer to know if he truly was more powerful than the other undead villain, or if it was just the excuse Katherine needed to give, but they don’t try to figure out which of the two it is. They were glad she gave them Ozy in the end, if only so that they could help spare her from the pain that facing him would be. 

Pulling up both their mask and hood they give her another nod before taking to the air. Between what she’d told them, and what research they did on their own, they knew that above all else they couldn’t give Ozy the chance to touch their bare skin. His touch meant death and decay, when he had the mind to do it, and they’d seen the grisly black and white photos of his various victims from the war, to know just what kind of damage he could do to them if given the chance. 

When they reach the other side of the training facility, they land on one of the steel beams above, before aiming their gun in his direction and firing three quick shots of stun ammo at him, hoping that three would be all they’d need to take him down. That hope it quickly dashed, however, when once the bullets hit Ozy they clatter to the floor breaking into small rusted fragments. 

“Right, so you can decay bullets too…”, they sigh as they stare down at Ozy whose attention was now focused in on them where they were perched above him. With their stun gun essentially useless, they toss it to the ground beneath them, before hopping down to join it. 

Ozy stands still as he glares at them, whatever thought process he did possess seemingly trying to figure out how to take down the prey standing before him. 

A chilling silence falls between them as they both look back at one another. They don’t think for a second Ozy in this state possesses the mental coherence to know just who they are and who they are to Katherine. But it is surreal for them to look at the face of the man they’d once served as a ghost for for so long, before their and Katherine’s relationship began to evolve further away from being simple distractions for one another. 

“Alright big guy, guess it’s just you and me now,” they sigh before bracing themself for the fight they really weren’t sure they could win. In a moment though it begins, once Ozy rushes towards them, and they have to side step away from avoiding him touching their face and doing unspeakable damage to it. They try their best to get around him, and try to pin him before he has the chance to grab at them, but they fail with each attempt hopelessly. 

As the struggle ensues, they glance back at Katherine briefly to see how she was faring in her own fight, only to feel Ozy snatch the back of their hood, which soon falls to the ground in decayed tatters between them. 

Oppenheimer –– the real Oppenheimer, used to spar with her back in the old days. He was strong, and his powers were so interesting to her. The way he could soak up so much energy – any kind you threw at him. A punch would only make him more powerful, a bullet wouldn’t do anything but ensure you a very painful night. Ira got stronger the more you tried to hurt him. And it made him a difficult foe to face. 

She’s never tried to turn him to stone before. 

She doesn’t know, really, if that counts as energy. Powers can have such strange limitations sometimes, and the weirdest things can work or not work, depending on who you’re facing. It was all semantics at the end of the day. It’s like a dance, figuring out what’s going to work and what isn’t. 

But she gets distracted from her dance by Dark Wing, by Ozymandias. She catches sight of them, out of the corner of her eye. The two people she probably loved most in the world right now. The past and the future in the same room. Her past, and her future. The fight doesn’t seem like it’s going well. The bullets in the stunner doesn’t have any effect on Ozy, and she should have anticipated that. He was all decay, right now. His powers active because that was what someone else had decided for him. They had reduced him to this, to a tool, to the thing that could suck life away from the world. 

She hesitates, only for a second. Oppenheimer seems pulled, he wants to leave, wants to follow after wherever Sam went. He won’t follow her now when she moves. 

So she lets him go. She thinks they can find him later. And she can’t let Dark Wing get hurt. That’s the one thought in her head. To save them, to protect them, to not let Ozy touch them. 

Medusa moves quickly, and reaches them when Ozy is reaching out to touch Dark Wing’s skin, to grab them by the neck. 

She pulls Ozymandias away from Dark Wing by the half decayed fabric of his clothing. She pushes him away to make space between them, and puts herself in the middle. She’s ready to lash out, ready to turn him to stone in a glance. But when he straightens, he looks at her. And looks, and looks, and looks. Medusa hadn’t managed to push him far, too gentle as an instinct, unwilling to actually hurt him –– but she would, if she had to. If she needed to hurt him to save Dark Wing, she would do it. 

He shifts towards her, ragged movement for a second, and her breath sticks in her chest. He looks the same. Practically the same as the last time she saw him. With his beautiful face, and his kind eyes. There was feeling behind them now, but it was a distant and unknowing kind of feeling, it wasn’t right. Still, she doesn’t move away when he shifts towards her. Better for him to focus on her than Dark Wing. And she doesn’t move away either, when he reaches up, when his hand hovers over her cheek. Delicate fingers make contact, and nothing decays. 

He would never hurt her. 

So she reaches up and touches him too. A goodbye, in a simple press of her hand against his chest. “Ozy.” She says, a whisper. And then: “It’s okay. It’s all okay.” 

The training room is disheveled when they reach it, not to the degree that speaks of some grand battle that occurred. Things weren’t smashed- more so turned over and thrown about, like the undead were looking for something. They focus their attention on what Medusa says though, as they slowly step further into the room, their guard up as they try to figure out the next best course of action.

The undead villain in front of them is one from her time, which is to their advantage, although they aren’t exactly sure how in the hell they were going to subdue the guy without hitting him too hard. 

“Kitty, dear, there’s no use in talking to him,” a third voice calls out to them shortly Katherine tries just that. They recognize the voice immediately to be Captain Covert’s, although they can’t for the life of them figure out just where he is. 

“Trust me, I tried, but the only thing that gets his attention is this,” and before they know it they see a tennis shoe being lopped from atop a corner cabinet and in the direction of Ira, pulling the villain’s attention briefly before his gaze snaps back at Katherine. 

“Sweetheart, Ozy is in here too,” they hear Covert call out to her, “I managed to lure these two in here, and was hoping to make another run outside and find Ramses, but it appears two zombies are just about all I can handle on my own.” 

They can hear Covert laugh weakly, before finally he reveals himself where he’s sitting atop the cabinet the tennis shoe had flew from. They have to fight the urge to fly up to that cabinet and kiss the hero, because he’d somehow managed to make this shitty fucking situation far less shittier by sequestering the one undead villain they were hoping to find into relative safety, and they know he did it for Katherine’s sake. 

“I can take care of Ira,” they say to her, as their gaze darts from Covert back to the villain who who was steadily getting closer to him. “Or I can handle Ozy… whatever you want.” 

She always thought that Sam was wonderful, beautiful, brave. They were one of the people she cherished back in the day, though maybe not quite as intensely as she should have been. And she’s been grateful, the last few weeks, that they’re here in this new world with her. Sharing in the strangeness of it all, being far better adjusted than her. And she’s even more grateful for them now, because they did this. They brought Oppenheimer and Ozy here, even when it meant that they couldn’t go out and find Ramses too. 

And she’s grateful, as well, because they aren’t really someone she needs to worry about. Sam can hold their own. Captain Covert is quick and stealthy, and they can avoid a lot of trouble. “When you see an opening, head out and find Ramses.” She offers him, eyes fixed now on Ira. And she tosses them the stun gun, while she’s at it. Shooting Oppenheimer, even with a stun gun, likely wouldn’t be worthwhile. The odds were that he wouldn’t feel a thing, that he would just absorb the impact and make everything worse. They were better off trying to use it on Ramses, or anyone else that they ran into. 

Oppenheimer might need to be stone, instead. 

And god, Ozy is here too. She can see him now, further back, still half looking for a target.

“I’ll take Ira.” She says, after that moment of hesitation. It isn’t too long. A split second, where she imagines facing Ozy, where she imagines possibly having to fight him, where she imagines raising a gun and pointing it at him. It’s just a stunner, it wouldn’t hurt him. He’s faced worse, and she’s done worse. But something in her quakes at the thought. But Dark Wing can face it, Dark Wing can do it for her. They’re ready and willing. “He’s more dangerous.” 

cw: gif with strobe effect 

They’re grateful beyond words, that Catalyst had paired them with Medusa- even though they’re certain there was some intent put behind the decision than just to throw them and their girlfriend together. They’d told Cat about Ozy, after the discovery at the cemetery, and Medusa’s connection to him. So they can’t help but think Cat must have recognized that while Medusa was a hell of a good fighter to have here, she was going to need someone with her that could keep her grounded at the same time. Someone to help her keep one foot locked in the present, while the rest of her was going to have to face this tragic part of her past. 

There was no telling if they would face Ozy tonight, there were numerous other undead villains running around that Tower, and rogue villains they’d been friends with too. The chance of them running into Ozy was slim probability wise, although they know Medusa wouldn’t stop searching that Tower until they did finally find him. 

“If we run into someone you know, let me know how best to subdue them,” they say after nudging her shoulder with their own after her last comment. “I’ll do the same. Between the dead villains and heroes from the 50s, and the rogue villains, we both know intimately a few of these guys running around here.” 

When they reach their floor finally, they find the dimly light hall hallway free from the sounds of a fight. In fact, it’s nearly free from any sounds at all except for the distant clatter and movement behind a door at one of the other ends of the hallway. The sounds weren’t violent necessarily, more like it sounded as though someone was searching for something- or maybe someone. 

“Well, if there’s a Guardian in there,” they say, voicing aloud their thoughts as they come to them, “it doesn’t sound like one of the heavy hitters.” 

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She nods her head, because it was a good idea. Sharing knowledge was the best way to get out of this with as few scratches as possible. And the odds were rather high that one of them would know something about the villians or the undead that they were facing when they stepped into a fight. “Sounds like a plan, dear.” She manages, and takes a breath. 

And then she tries to do her best to focus. She couldn’t lock away all the emotions that were constantly bubbling up under her skin, given the odds of her running into someone she loved here. She was going to find Ozy one way or another, she wouldn’t leave the tower without him. Him and Ramses. The rest of them could burn in hell for all she cared. And as long as Sam was okay, most of the Guardians could join them. But she was going to try her best, she was going to put her own determination aside and do everything she could to aid the mission as a whole, as well. They had been sent here to do something, and she would do it. Save whatever idiot Guardian they got stuck with, and drag any rogue villian to safety by the scruff of their neck, if she had to. 

The sound in the hallway is much calmer than she imagined. And her forehead wrinkles in thought at that. It didn’t sound like there was much fighting going on behind the door at the end of the hallway. “Let’s just hope they don’t get in our way.” She says, a little absent, and leads them forward down the hall. 

She has to force the door open, something had fallen against it recently, it seemed. But her heart stops cold when she enters the room. It’s Ira she sees first, looking as young as she ever knew him to be. Oppenheimer. There’s another she can hear that she doesn’t have eyes on, yet. And someone in the very corner of the room, invisible. “Don’t hit him too hard.” She says, to Dark Wing. “He’ll just absorb your energy and throw it right back at you.”