Chapter Text
Shatter/Mend
Kira shivered as she held up a section of her hair and stared in disgust at the black goop coating it. It shimmered in the florescent lights of the warehouse.
“Why was I the only one who got soaked in this stuff?” She complained, wrinkling her nose as she sniffed it. Oil and a million terrible farts all rolled into one horrific scent that currently emanated from every inch of her body.
“Because you didn’t run away fast enough,” Mason grunted from the other side of the room, obviously trying to get as far away from the stench as possible. Normally Kira would be trying to be sensitive to his feral senses, but after that battle she just didn’t have it in her. “I cut across the wires of that bot and you just stood there.”
“I was still attached to it with my grappling hook. You know, since I was the one to trip it up before it could reach City Hall?”
“Right, sorry.” Mason’s voice couldn’t have been less sincere, and Kira felt her dormant temper rising.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Felix interrupted, using his super speed to dash in front of her before she could do anything rash. He moved as if to grab her shoulder, then wrinkled his nose and pulled it back. “We’ve all had a long day fighting that giant robot, so why don’t we cool down for a bit? On the bright side, no one was seriously hurt.”
Kira took a deep breath to calm down and immediately began to cough from the smell she’d inhaled.
“Come one, it’s going to take multiple washes to get that off of you. You might as well rinse off with your uniform still on and I’ll help you with your hair, ok? Then you can shower for real when we’re done.”
“I’ll excuse you and Felix from the debrief,” Adam offered from beside one of the room’s windows where he and Nate had been in deep conversation. All his injuries from the battle were minor and had already healed. He didn’t look any worse for the wear after carrying the mad scientist who had created the robot back to the warehouse either, but such were the benefits of his incredible superstrength. “Rebecca has already called in a clean up crew. Once you’re cleaned up you should be good to take off for the night.”
“I moved our reservations back when we got word of the robot, so don’t worry about that.” Nate smiled kindly at her; his eyes compassionate. He knew how much Kira had been looking forward to their date. “We don’t have to rush.”
“Thanks guys.” The loss of her temper felt a little like an overreaction now, but it had been such a bad day. The sooner Nate and she were out of here the better. No more emergencies.
Felix followed Kira into the locker rooms and continued on to the showers in the back, grabbing a bottle of dish soap as well as Nate’s bodywash. He waved it at Kira enticingly and she laughed.
“Now what’s this about your day with Natey?” He asked. “I didn’t know you guys had a date tonight.”
“You can’t laugh,” Kira warned, slipping into the shower with the dish soap so she could at least scrub some of the muck off. Black swirled down her body and into the drain as she scrubbed the dish soap all over herself. “It’s our one-month anniversary as a couple and we wanted to do something special.”
“You two are ridiculously cute and if it was anyone else, you’d drive me insane,” Felix teased from behind the curtain. It was obvious he was on the edge of laughter. With most of the mess off Kira stripped out of her uniform and stuck it in the corner before beginning to use the bodywash Felix had grabbed for her. He was right to pick it, instantly the familiar scent eased away her tensions as it chased away what was left of the unpleasant smell. “I’m going to guess the giant killer robot interrupted your plans for today?”
Her body felt clean, but taking a strand of hair in hand and holding it to her noes revealed the scent was alive and well in her hair. She turned the water off and reached out for a towel, drying off before wrapping it around her shoulders before reaching out and grabbing her robe.
“Unforgivably,” Kira agreed, stepping out fully dressed and sitting in the salon style chair they’d bought just for situations like these. “We were going to a bookstore this morning and we were planning on spending the entire day there. They have these wonderful chairs and we could have spent all morning reading. Instead, we didn’t even get a chance to do anything before we had to run out and fight robot.”
Felix began to work on her hair and Kira relaxed. When Felix first offered to wash her hair when she got covered in dust while fighting a supervillain at a construction site, she’d scoffed, but it turned out he was actually really good at it. Now it was just routine—a mission got Kira filthy, Felix helped clean her up.
“I think I my skills at washing hair should bump my power level up to an X like everyone else,” Felix joked.
Kira kept her eyes closed, but raised one eyebrow in question.
“Isn’t Nate an 8?”
“In his mending powers yeah, but he has a power that he never uses that makes him an X. He doesn’t like to talk about it. Which is silly, but that’s Nate.”
Felix shut off the water and ran a towel over her hair. It wasn’t the first time Felix had dropped important knowledge on Kira like it was nothing and just moved on. She supposed she should be used to it by now.
“Anyway, we just have to make sure the rest of the day goes better. How about I braid your hair for you?”
That he hadn’t been good at, not the first few times. But enough Youtube videos and superspeed practices and she trusted him more with her hair than she trusted herself. She nodded and he braided her wet hair around her head into a crown. She stood and followed him into the locker room. Nate was the only one there, in the midst of pulling on a white wife beater. Kira blushed and looked away for a moment, elbowing Felix when he laughed. When she looked again, he was partway through buttoning up a blue dress shirt. Nate caught her eye and winked.
“Felix and I will get out of your hair so you can change.”
Felix was a blur and next Kira could see him clearly, he had changed out of his uniform and into his civies. He shot a grin at both her and Nate.
“Have a great time, but remember I’m not ready to be Uncle Felix quite yet.”
Felix was gone in a flash, leaving Kira spluttering protests while turning a shade of bright red.
“I’ll just see myself out. I don’t think the restaurant would love it if you showed up like that, though I wouldn’t mind.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, out of here Mr. Silvertongue. I’ll be quick.”
He laughed and left her. She changed into the summery dress she’d picked out for their date, the light green playing off her hair. A quick swipe of lip gloss and she was ready to go.
“Ready to head out Nate?”
He strode towards her and took her hand in his.
“Not until I tell you how beautiful you are,” he whispered into her ear before pulling back to kiss her gently. “You look wonderful love.”
“Thanks Nate. You look great too.”
They made their way outside, holding hands, and began their walk to the restaurant. The streets, at least in this part of town, were mostly empty of people, and it felt like the whole city was theirs.
“Felix is never going to stop teasing us like that is he?”
“No, probably not,” Nate replied. “It’s a nice balance to Mason’s ribald humor and Adam’s well-intentioned warnings at least.”
Kira snorted.
“If Adam references me as being fragile one more time, I’m going to see how fragile he is when I use my taser on him.”
“Yes, Adam is a bit backward in showing he cares. They all are a bit unusual.”
“And I love them for it, most of the time,” Kira admitted, squeezing Nate’s hand as they crossed the street. She bit her lip before forcing out the question that had been on her mind since speaking with Felix. “This may be a weird question, but Felix mentioned something about you being Tier X? I thought that was just Adam and Mason.”
“Hah, he brought that up huh?” Kira turned to look at Nate, troubled by the distress she saw there. “It’s not something I like to talk about, so I’m surprised he shared it with you.”
“You know Felix, anything exciting is just something to share for him. He forgets that not everyone is so free with things. If you don’t want to talk about it that’s fine Nate. I don’t want to ruin this day for us.”
“I can explain a little—” Nate cut off abruptly, halting their movement and tucking her behind him. “I think something—”
Kira gasped as something whizzed from the alley just as a van flew around a corner straight for them, stopping as masked people poured out. She looked to Nate for direction in how to handle the situation only to find him looking almost sick. It made no sense; he should be healing already. He could mend himself and others at incredible rates. The attackers were getting in closer.
“Nate!” She reached up to slap his face to break him out of it only to catch sight of a dart sticking out of the base of his neck. Kira pulled it out and flung it to the ground, but whatever it was had done its damage. Nate slid to the ground. One hand went into her back pocket to press the emergency button on her phone, the other grabbed her extendable baton. She placed herself over Nate’s body and stared down the man closest to her. “Don’t come any closer. I will hurt you.”
“I don’t think so,” the man replied, reaching out. Kira swung with enough strength that she was certain she broke the first finger the baton made contact with. He let out a scream of pain and fell back, but two others took his place.
“We don’t have time to play around. Take them so we can go!”
Kira tried to stop them, but it was near impossible to prevent them from being able to approach Nate’s body while keeping her attackers busy. If she lasted long enough the others would come, drawn by her signal. She just had to last long enough.
A blow to her arm burned its way down her nerve and the baton fell from her hands. She screamed for help, but they bound her mouth while they bound her limbs, trussing her up before laying her in the back of their van, Nate’s unconscious body next to her.
“Carefully with the merchandise,” a woman’s voice warned. “He probably won’t last much longer, but we need her healthy to extract what we need.”