Chapter Text
Despite Tattletale’s reluctance, she arrived at Breakthrough’s office half an hour before the scheduled meeting. At Victoria’s look, she rolled her eyes.
“My dad is neurotically early to everything,” Tattletale explained. “He’ll be here 15 minutes early; I don’t want to have to fight him for the high ground just walking in the room.”
Victoria didn’t say anything, but simply observed Tattletale’s appearance. Casual jeans and a nondescript, solid black T-shirt. Nothing especially fancy, but nothing ratty either. Enough to show that Sarah was well put together, but revealing nothing else about her. On some people, Victoria would have assumed the outfit was casually put together, but she knew Tattletale too well. This outfit was carefully constructed to avoid giving away anything about her. Sarah’s makeup was similarly subtle and nondescript. Not eye-catching, but also not so subtle that she didn’t appear put together.
What really caught Victoria’s attention, however, was that Tattletale had concealed the scar on her cheek. Normally, Tattletale liked emphasizing the scar. She never used it to boast or even talked about it unless someone else brought it up, but she always highlighted it with makeup when she was in costume. Victoria had assumed it was a calculated ploy to use the scar as a badge of honor; a mark that Tattletale had stood up to Jack Slash and not only walked away, but ruined one of his schemes enough that she pissed him off. That scar was a reminder that Tattletale would step up and help against the S-Class threats, but also that her words could be dangerous enough to play at that level.
As Sarah, she appeared to be trying to distance herself from Tattletale. Was she trying to downplay the danger of her life? Was it a part of her general aim of being nondescript? Was she simply trying to avoid displaying a recognizable feature of a famous cape?
Victoria’s thoughts were interrupted by a pigeon cooing at the window. She was about to pay it no mind when she saw Tattletale scowl and glare at the pigeon. Chicken Little? If it was, he didn’t seem to be interfering.
A few minutes later, the Livseys entered the room. True to Tattletale’s prediction, they were about 15 minutes early. Victoria allowed 14 minutes to count as close enough, since they probably took a minute to walk from the parking lot.
When they entered the room, June started to rush forward and spread her arms for a hug, but Sarah (Victoria tried to think of her as Sarah, just to avoid outing Tattletale) remained seated with the table between her and the door.
“Sit,” Sarah said.
June frowned and started to open her mouth, but Fred dragged her down into a seat across from Sarah and then took a seat of his own. “Are you okay? Before we got your letter, we thought you were dead,” he said.
“I know,” said Sarah, “I liked it that way.”
“How…how have you been?” June forced a smile onto her face.
“I’ve been good,” said Sarah, “I haven’t had to deal with shitty parents.”
“We were surprised that Antares was able to find you so fast,” Fred said.
“Yeah, she’s annoying like that.” As soon as the words left Sarah’s mouth, she winced.
“You know each other?” June asked.
Victoria looked at Sarah and raised an eyebrow.
Sarah sighed. “Yeah, we’ve worked together a few times.”
“I recognized her from the photo,” Victoria admitted. “I’m sorry for not being up front, but I wanted to talk to Sarah first.”
“In cape culture, unmasking someone is seen as…rude,” Sarah explained, understating the complexity of masks. “Also, usually when someone is hiding from family, there’s a damn good reason.”
“Oh,” June said. “I guess that’s fair.”
“We realize that you are still angry with us,” Fred said. “I think it would be fair if you still wanted nothing to do with us. It’s a relief just to hear that you hadn’t been kidnapped at gunpoint to work for a villain or something.”
It was subtle, the Livseys probably missed it, but Victoria saw Sarah suppress a flinch and a wince. Victoria fought down her own urge to ask questions, but she could guess that something like that had happened. Was that the start of the transformation from Sarah the runaway to Tattletale the villain?
“We just want you safe and happy,” June said. “We’re sorry we ever made you and Reggie feel otherwise.”
Sarah snorted. “The world ending gave you some perspective, huh? Big business isn’t as big as it used to be.”
“Before that,” Fred said. “When you first ran away, we were terrified. Terrified that we’d get the news you were dead in a ditch somewhere, or worse. After enough time, it sank in that we had lost both of our kids. What else matters after that?”
The room was silent for a moment before Sarah said, “Fuck. You actually mean that.”
June frowned. “Why wouldn’t we?”
“Because I never seemed to matter before,” Sarah said. “All you cared about was how much money I could make you.”
“That’s not true,” Fred said.
“Yes, it fucking is.” Sarah stood and planted her hands on the table. “As soon as you realized you had a pocket Thinker, all you thought about was squeezing her for every dollar you could.”
Fred flinched backward. “That’s not–”
“Then what was it, Dad?” Sarah spat the word like it was a slur. “Tell me how throwing your daughter into your books was supposed to be about her and not about your damn pride.”
“We were trying to get your mind off of Reggie,” June said with a squeak. “After finding him like that, I thought the shock would kill you. You were so pale and couldn’t sleep for weeks. We thought that something, anything, that could get your mind off of that scene would help you.”
Sarah fixed a steely glare at June. Then, after a moment, her gaze softened. “Fuck,” she whispered, “you actually mean that.”
“We didn’t realize until later that the pressure of the business was what made Reggie…do that,” said Fred. “Not until after you left. It took time, but we realized we were pushing you down the same path. We just realized too late.”
“Way too late,” Sarah said as she sat back down.
“Can we start over?” asked June. “I get that we can’t just pretend that nothing happened, but something?”
“We can get dinner,” Fred said. “Maybe chat about how our lives have been.”
“I know how your lives have been,” Sarah said.
“Oh,” Fred said, “I guess you must, if you’ve been watching us enough to know about the charity.”
“Do you need money?” June asked. “We aren’t as well off as before, but we can spare some. Not just the charity, but we’ve got some spare cash.”
Sarah closed her eyes and pressed two fingers against her forehead. “I don’t need your money.”
“Sarah…”
“I don’t need your fucking money!” Sarah shot to her feet.
At the window, a second pigeon landed and stared into the room.
Sarah’s head snapped toward the window, and her eyes narrowed. She held one finger up to her parents and then stomped over to the window and threw it open.
The pigeons didn’t move.
“Pri. Vate. Con. Ver. Sa. Tion.” Sarah waved a hand at the pigeons. “Shoo!”
The pigeons didn’t move.
“I said, SHOO!”
The pigeons didn’t move.
“Do I need to threaten the ice cream?”
The pigeons reluctantly turned and took flight.
Sarah slammed the window closed again and walked back over to the table. She flopped into her chair and sighed. “Sorry about that.”
“What…” started a bemused Fred.
“Do…do you often yell at birds?” asked June.
“Far too often,” said Sarah.
The Livseys looked at Victoria, concern plain on their faces.
“Sarah, he’s just worried about you.” Victoria turned to face the Livseys. “And, without revealing too much, yes, that’s perfectly normal.”
“Oh,” Fred said, “I guess ‘he’ is a cape that has something to do with birds.”
“A boyfriend?” June asked hesitantly. “Husband?
“Ew, no. He’s 10,” Sarah said. “I guess he’s closer to being my son than anything else.”
Fred’s eyebrows shot upward. “Your son!?”
“Not literally,” Sarah said. “He just…works for me. I’ve been mentoring him for a while.”
“Enough of a while that he’s like a son?” Fred asked.
“Yeah,” Sarah said. “He…besides the orphanage, he doesn’t really have anyone else.”
“The Tenders…” Victoria started.
“Are peers,” Sarah said firmly, “not parental units. And not a good influence.”
“Hey!”
“He lives in an orphanage?” June asked, interrupting Victoria’s indignation. “Can you not give him a place to live with you?”
“I gave him the orphanage,” Sarah said. At the questioning look of her parents, she clarified. “I’m funding the orphanage. It started as a friend’s project, but I took it over.”
Fred blinked. “That’s a worthwhile cause. You have enough money to do that?”
“It’s a drop in the bucket,” Sarah said softly.
“That’s why you don’t need our money,” June said with a strained smile. “You’re doing well enough on your own.”
Sarah rolled her eyes. “To be honest, I was an early investor in Earth Gimel. I’m doing better than you are.”
Victoria suppressed a snort. “Early investor” was an understatement to describe the woman who figured out how to make a stable portal to this world.
“Well,” Fred said with a smirk, “you don’t know exactly how well we are doing.”
Sarah rolled her eyes. “$582.31 in the revolving checking account. $20,098.80 in the high-yield savings account. $58,809.92 in the investment account with a roughly 70/20/10 allocation between stocks, bonds, and money market. Real estate property that you’ve valued at roughly $1.7 million, but my own assessment puts it closer to $1.5 million.”
The room was dead quiet. The Livseys were frozen in place as their faces slowly lost all color.
Victoria slowly raised a hand to her face and pinched the bridge of her nose as she closed her eyes. “Sarah…”
“What?”
“Please tell me you looked that up after I talked to you.”
“You’re a skank.”
“That’s not helpful.”
“Was there a security breach at the bank?” Fred asked.
Sarah snorted. “What even is security, anyway?”
“I think,” Victoria said. “That the security breach is named ‘Sarah.’”
June stared at her daughter in horror. “You can just…do that?”
“Dragon only bitches if I start moving money around,” Sarah said. “She’s given up on stopping me from peaking.”
“I guess it’s safe if Dragon trusts you,” Fred said.
At that, Victoria failed to suppress a snort. When the Livseys looked at her, she added: “It’s more that Dragon doesn’t feel like getting into a pissing match with Sarah is worth the headache. She can be very annoying.”
“Aww, thank you,” Sarah said with a smile.
“So long as everything is working out for you,” June said. “Where…if you don’t mind sharing…where are you living now?”
Sarah froze for a second, and then Victoria saw something give way inside of her. Sarah’s shoulders hunched slowly. Subtle enough for her parents to miss, but Victoria caught the signs of Sarah making a decision that she didn’t like.
“New Brockton,” Sarah said.
“New Brockton,” Fred said, “isn’t that overrun by the Undersiders? Are you safe from them?”
“I’m as safe as I can be,” Sarah said as she pulled a handkerchief from her pocket. “I am the Undersiders.” She used the handkerchief to wipe the makeup from her scar.
Fred had a puzzled look on his face, but June gasped. “No! Tattletale?”
“Yeah,” Sarah said.
June stared at her. “My little Sarah is a villain?”
A horrified expression crept over Fred’s face.
“Lisa,” Sarah—Lisa—said. “I haven’t gone by Sarah in a long time.”
Fred looked back and forth between Lisa and Victoria, a confused expression on his face.
“The Undersiders are in a bit of a different category than the average villain,” Victoria said. “They have routinely proven that they are willing to coordinate with the heroes against major threats and are a force for stability. The Wardens have settled on unofficially treating them more like a foreign power than a villain gang. One that isn’t always friendly, but can be when needed.”
“The world is fucked,” Lisa said. “If I hold it together, no one cares how I do it.”
“So,” Fred said slowly, “you two knowing each other is sort of like two diplomats?”
“Sort of,” Victoria said. “I also tried to punt her through a wall during her…” She turned to look at Lisa. “What was it? Third major public appearance?”
“Something like that.” Lisa turned to look at her parents. “I was robbing a bank. Glory Hole,” she hooked a thumb at Victoria, “objected. I robbed the bank anyway.”
June’s jaw dropped. “You robbed a bank?”
Lisa smirked. “The real profit was in the business records. Walked out with a few thousand in cash, and a few million in wire transfers.”
“The Undersiders operate very differently nowadays,” Victoria explained. “But that just means that they’ve made much more powerful enemies. I hope you realize how important it is, for your own safety, that you don’t let anyone know you are related to Tattletale. Someone might try to use you as leverage against her.”
“It won’t work,” Lisa interjected.
“Whether or not it will work,” Victoria continued, “it’s important that you keep quiet about it.”
The Livseys nodded without saying anything.
“Can…” June said, “Can we meet him? The bird boy that is sort of your son? That makes him sort of my grandson.”
Lisa sighed and then slowly walked over to the window. She reluctantly opened it and then called out, “Chicken!”
An enormous Haast Eagle landed on the windowsill, filling the entire window frame. It stared at Lisa, which elicited a squeak from June.
“Get over here,” Lisa said.
The eagle started to chirp at Lisa in what Victoria belatedly realized was a mimicry of her earlier enunciation of “private conversation.”
“Yes, yes, you're hilarious,” Lisa said dryly. “Now get your smart ass over here.”