#int 3

Boone: you handle transactions?

Courier: no, I'm a trans person

“What?”

“Does… does this have anything to do with the, erm, rather strong feelings you have towards me?”

Panacea went still.

Pftrwph

Ahaha, nice work there, Wildbow

I’m not being sarcastic: It comes enough out of nowhere to catch the reader off-guard, but it’s not unforeshadowed either - did I not point out that Panacea was acting more shyly than usual and suggest that maybe there was someone here causing that? There’s also her reaction to Gallant taking her hand. Nice work.

I’m not really sold on the ending, but I’m also inclined to think it was intentionally unsatisfying.

There’s significant evidence suggesting Caliborn wrote it, and everything after the retcons mirrors Homosuck Act 2 and 3.

It’s also almost explicitly stated in the comic that Caliborn is behind Collide (see the linked post), and Collide is very much an opposite to Cascade, which was a masterful ending to the first half of the story.

Cod damn this was a good chapter.

Interlude 3 is so far unique in the story even by the standards set by the other two Interludes: Where the other Interludes had a different POV than usual, Interlude 3 doesn’t have a POV character at all. The closest we get is Gallant, the only character who is present for all of the chapter except the exposition at the beginning, but the story is not told markedly from his perspective.

It’s a decision I think works well for this chapter, following the Wards and Panacea as they go over their loss against the Undersiders. In the process, we got to learn about the PRT Headquarters (I think the interpretation that the PRT is the agency governing both the Protectorate and the Wards stands strongest), Director Piggot, the personalities of most of the Wards (Vista didn’t get any lines, but even so she did get some characterization), what happened to Browbeat, Miss Militia, and last but definitely not least, Panacea.

“But at the same time… I can’t cure everyone.  Even if I go to the hospital every night for two or three hours at a time, there are thousands of other hospitals I can’t visit, tens of millions of people who are terminally ill or living in a personal hell where they’re paralyzed or in constant pain.  These people don’t deserve to face that, but I can’t help them all.  I can’t help one percent of them if I put in twenty hours a day.”

Aaand there’s the other side of the coin. She doesn’t have the power to help everybody, but she feels like it’s her responsibility to. It also means it’s her responsibility to choose whom to help, who gets to live or die, which can be very hard to live with.

“You have to focus on what you can do,” Gallant told her.

“Sounds easier than it is,” Panacea answered, with a touch of bitterness,

Gallant is right, but so is Panacea - it’s not always easy to live with your own limitations.

“Do you understand what it means, to cure some of these people?  I feel like every second I take to myself is a second I’ve failed somehow.

Aww

I want to hug her.

Can I hug her please?

For two years, it’s been this… pressure.  I lie in bed, awake at night, and I can’t sleep.  So I get up and I go to the hospital in the middle of the night.  Go to pediatrics, cure some kids.  Go to the ICU, spare some lives… and it’s all just blending together.  I can’t even remember the last few people I saved.”

Damn. She’s... turning into basically a healing robot. Not literally, of course, but in her own eyes, it’s what she’s for. Time to herself is time innocents spend dying without her help, sleep likewise, she can’t take time to be a normal human without having hypothetical deaths on her conscience.

So they don’t know that Taylor is a girl. Which makes sense - she stayed hidden inside the bank, and the only ones who really saw her were Glory Girl and Panacea, who aren’t present. Maybe also Aegis, but he was... kind of preoccupied at the time.

“Girl,” Clockblocker corrected him, “I was talking to the hostages after the Undersiders made their getaway.

Ah, there we go. Forgot about the hostages.

He said he was afraid to move because she was going to make it bite him.  It took me a bit to realize exactly what he meant.  Poor fella was in shock.”

“But we don’t know what she called herself?”

Nobody had any answer to that.

To be fair, she barely knows that herself.

“Then we need to agree on a name for her, or the paperwork’s going to be inconsistent.  Suggestions for a name for the bug girl?”

“Maggot?  Worm?” Browbeat offered, “Stick her with a crappy name?”

Hey look, Worm

I’m on record as theorizing that that would be her name eventually, but I’m not ruling out the possibility of Wildbow pulling a fast one on us.

Also, whatever these guys decide, I’m not going to treat it as any more final than Bug until I get Taylor’s opinion.

“We don’t want to do that,” Clockblocker sighed, “Maybe if we’d won, we could get away with it, but it doesn’t look so good if the press reports that we got our asses kicked by someone called maggot.”

Pfft.

“Stinger, Pestilence?” Vista suggested.

Clockblocker spun himself around in the chair and punched the names into the computer, “Taken.  Stinger is some villain in California with power armor, a jetpack and homing missiles, and Pestilence is a creepy psycho in London.”

Just stick a number at the end, like people do on the internet. Maybe some Xs too.

“Is this how it starts?  Is this the point I start becoming like my father, whoever he was?”

Welp. I guess Tattletale dishing out her origin story (while Panacea did already know it) left an impression on her even without actually letting her know her father’s name. It’s probably the real reason she was so shaken up.

This whole conversation is making Panacea rapidly climb my (incredibly fuzzy) character ranking, by the way.

Gallant let out a slow breath, “I could say no, that you’re never going to be like your father.  But I’d be lying.  Any of us, all of us, we run the risk of finding our own way down that path.  I can see the strain you’re experiencing, the stress.  I’ve seen people snap because of less.  So yeah.  It’s possible.”

Hrm. I guess he knows honesty is better to get through to her than superficial white lies.

“Okay,” she said, just under her breath.  He waited for her to elaborate, but she didn’t.

“Take a break.  Tell yourself it’s something you have to do, to recharge your batteries and help more people in the long run.”

“I don’t think I can.”

They sat in silence for a few moments.

“You know I can sense emotions,” he said, “Everyone’s emotions, like a cloud of colors around them.  Can’t turn it off.  It’s just how I see the world.”

“Victoria mentioned that.”

Huh, that’s interesting. It kind of ties in with Glory Girl’s and Gallant’s powers, which are based on messing with people’s emotions.

So is Gallant making a play for his girlfriend’s sister now, or...?

Oh, hang on, I misread. It’s Gallant’s power, not Panacea’s. That makes a lot more sense; why would healing and emotion-vision go together?

“So you’re an open book to me.  I know you’re scared.  No… you’re terrified, and that’s why you’re not talking.”

But... of what?

She sighed and sat on the bed, as far from Gallant as she could.

“I never wanted these powers.  I never wanted powers, period.”

He nodded.

“But I got them anyways, and I got international attention over it.  The healer.  The girl who could cure cancer with a touch, make someone ten years younger, regrow lost limbs.  I’m forced to be a hero.  Burdened with this obligation.  I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t use this power.  It’s such an opportunity, to save lives.”

“With great power comes great responsibility.” This is exactly the kind of situation that quote refers to - Panacea could probably relate to Peter Parker if they met and talked for a while.

Spiderman may sound like he’s enjoying the superhero work, and on one level I think he does, but he’s motivated to pick it up by the lesson his uncle’s death taught him: That if he has the capability to help people, he has a duty to do it.

It’s a similar story with Panacea, but unlike Spiderman, she doesn’t seem to enjoy it.