Work Text:
Nova was fidgeting.
She was in Adrian's room, pacing and fidgeting and doing a terrible job at hiding her worry.
"Don't worry." Adrian told her to try and calm her down. "It's going to be okay. You don't have to be worried."
She shouldn't be, of course. The Supernova, as it had been named, was over. The day at the arena was far in the past. Ace was dead. Max was safe. Nova's identity was out. Leroy was in Cragmoor, with a reduced sentence due to Nova's testimony and the good word Adrian had put in for him. The helmet was buried and the world seemed to be back to normal.
Nova should have had no reason to be worried.
Except she was.
Adrian had forgiven her for her betrayal and being Nightmare, but she still had some people to talk to. Oscar, Ruby, and Danna were supposed to be meeting Adrian for a fun team activity. Nova doubted they would actually show up if he'd told them the real reason for their little reunion.
Nova heard footsteps and quickly looked up. She had considered hiding away until all three of them had arrived, but decided against it. She was going to face them one way or another.
Oscar walked into the basement and paused when he saw Nova. She tried to smile apologetically and in a way of greeting, but smiles were not her strong suit and could tell whatever she had plastered on her face was not doing anything in her favor. Ruby and Danna walked in after him, meeting Oscar at the bottom of the stairs where he'd paused.
"Hi," Nova said lamely as they both looked up at her.
No one answered and they instead kept glaring at her.
"I know you hate me right now," she started before Adrian could say anything. She needed to do this herself. "But I just want to explain everything. I owe you that much."
"Continue." Danna said sharply.
Nova took a deep breath. She could do this; she had to do this.
"I didn't expect to like you."
Oscar, Ruby, Danna, and even Adrian raised a shocked eyebrow.
Great start Nova.
"I was raised by Ace and the Anarchists and I was raised to hate the Renegades," she paused slightly. "I was able to hate you so passionately and effectively because I believed that it was the Renegades fault that my family was murdered."
She wasn't looking at anyone. She didn't share her family's story much and didn't want to see the looks on anyone's faces when she told it. Whether the looks were pitying, skeptical, or even bored. She looked at the floor instead.
"When I was little my dad told me that the Renegades would help us; that they would protect us, and I had no reason to be worried because they would be there. So when I watched my parents get shot and heard the gunshot that killed my baby sister and I was hiding in a closet, I kept telling myself that the Renegades would come. I only stopped telling myself that when I was holding a gun to the forehead of my family's murderer and telling myself to pull the trigger."
Nova took a deep breath, still looking at the floor.
"Then my uncle found me, and he took me into his care and told me that my father had been making weapons for the Roaches. He told me my father had wanted to stop and had gone to the Renegades to ask what he should do and how the Renegades told him to stop making weapons and they would protect us in return." Nova looked up at the three of them. "He told me they failed. And that was something I knew, something I'd witnessed, so it wasn't hard for me to hate the Renegades with everything I had."
Their expressions had remained mostly the same, but the icy glares they had worn before were now, ever so slightly, more inviting. Nova continued, she didn't want her story to gain her pity; she was here to explain her actions. "I infiltrated the Renegades as a mission. I had to learn everything I could so I could take you down from the inside. The only time I hesitated was when I realized I would have to suppress my hatred for you. I didn't hesitate in accepting the mission because I felt bad in taking down the organization."
They all looked shocked once more at the truthfulness of her words.
Keep going Nova.
"But then," Nova had the ghost of a smile on her face. "You accepted me with open arms and offered me kindness and friendship. I mean, Smokescreen and Red Assassin tried to hug me, Nightmare, after the trials."
Oscar and Ruby's lips quirked upwards in a very small smile as they remembered the day.
"I wasn't ready for the obstacle of friendship." Nova admitted. "I was so wildly unprepared that I couldn't even admit you were my friends until I was in Cragmoor- faced with every truth I had locked away in my mind. I didn't expect to care about your safety. I didn't expect to worry about you in any way. I so didn't want to earn your kindness and friendship because I didn't deserve it."
Danna was the only one whose look had barely changed throughout Nova's speech. Nova had to keep herself from smiling upon noticing.
"Against my better judgment, I came to care for you." Nova looked at Danna. "Even when I knew you suspected me, I still considered you one of the people I liked best of all at headquarters. Even when I should have disliked you the most, with all our contrasting ideas, I still liked you more than I should have. I kept forgetting I should have been wary of you because you were just so... you and I came to like you so much more than I'd expected I couldn't really force myself to not like you."
Danna's stoic look softened slightly, but Nova turned away. This was an apology, but it wasn't up to her if the others decided to accept it.
"When we were at the arena and I learned Honey's bees had injected Agent N," she continued, "it was all I could hope for that you hadn't been stung." Nova took to looking at the floor again, ashamed. "When the fight took place I was so scared Ace would win. I was so scared something would happen to you. You're all great prodigies and even better Renegades, but I knew that if Ace captured you..." Nova spared them the description of the torture she knew Ace had had in store for them. "I couldn't let that happen. I wanted to protect all of you, even if I knew you would run towards danger and that you would hate me when you found out I really was Nightmare."
Nova looked up at them once again and steadied herself. "Then everything went wrong with the tunnels, and I didn't know what to do anymore. I kept at the Anarchists' side because they were fighting for what I had been fighting for practically my whole life. But I couldn't-"
Nova shook her head. "I couldn't do it. I did terrible things and I know that. I know that now. And I hate how misguided and wrong I was. I know you probably won't forgive me and you don't have to, I just wanted to explain."
Nova had tears in her eyes and tore her eyes away from the four of them and looked at the ceiling. She wasn't going to let her tears fall. She had been through much worse. She wasn't going to shed tears.
"I am just so so sorry." Nova looked back down at them, tears stinging her eyes. "I am so so sorry. For everything."
Nova looked back down as she finished speaking, fighting the urge to bury the heels of her hands in her eyes.
She expected them to turn away and leave without saying anything. She didn't want them to see the emotion written on her face when that happened. She wanted them to think she at least still had some strength in her; she didn't want them to see her fall apart.
But they stayed in their place.
Nova looked up at them and Danna took a step forward. Nova stayed rooted in place. Out of everyone, Danna was the one she'd wronged the most.
"You killed the Detonator," she said evenly, looking Nova in the eyes. "You shot her cleanly, with one shot, even though she was practically your family."
"I don't regret it," Nova replied defensively. "Ingrid was going to hurt everyone at Cosmopolis Park because of her own petty crusade. I don't regret shooting her, even if she was like my family."
"You came back for Danna and me at the cathedral," Oscar walked forward. "You didn't know Narcissa had freed us, but you came back. Amidst a battle, you came for us."
"I could leave you there." Nova defended again. "Who knew what was going to happen? You couldn't just stay there."
"You came to my brother's Olympic games," Ruby joined the group. "Even though you hated being there, you came and stayed."
"It was important to you."
"You shot Queen Bee." Adrian joined the group with a smile. "Cyanide said she was like a mother to you, but she was going to kill me and you protected me."
"You didn't deserve to die. Not then and not now. Honey was going to do wrong just as a show of power."
The four stood there in silence, looking at her expectantly.
Nova didn't know what was happening.
Danna noticed her confusion and rolled her eyes. "You're not a bad person Nova."
Nova tried to keep her face nonchalant and stoic.
Wait, what?
"You were manipulated by Ace Anarchy into believing lies that guided your choices," she continued. "But the choices you made along the way in which you were actually free to choose prove that you just made some mistakes. We all make mistakes. You're not a bad person."
"I trapped you in a jar!" Nova blurted. She couldn't believe what she was hearing.
"That's one of your bigger mistakes," Danna replied with a shrug.
Nova looked at Oscar and Ruby with an open mouth.
She couldn't believe what she was hearing.
"You're the reason Ace Anarchy was defeated," Ruby said with a shrug, agreeing with Danna. "Once you could finally choose between the paths you could take, you chose the right one."
"And you showed Frostbite and her goons a good time and no one can hate Nightmare for that." Oscar pitched in happily.
Nova let out a breath of relief and a tear escaped from her eye.
"I'm so sorry," she said again.
"I think now, you need to forgive yourself," Danna said with a small smile.
Ruby moved forward and gave her a hug. And unlike the first time she'd done it, Nova accepted it openly.
Oscar smiled and joined the hug. Adrian grinned and also joined. Danna was the last to join but did.
Nova hugged them all with slow, silent tears running down her face.
She was finally, truly, home.