Chapter Text
Vi doesn't sleep a wink the night before she's released.
She knows Powder is coming to pick her up in the morning, and the thought of finally getting to see her sister again after 12 years is exciting enough to keep her staring at the cell's ceiling, willing the sunlight to start creeping through the tiny window. The second she hears the guard's footsteps coming from the corridor she gets up and stands impatiently by the bars but then, when he finally opens the door, she's hesitant to step out. It's a mix of happiness, relief and utter fear that overwhelms her, and if the guard hadn't commanded Vi to do so, it would've taken her an hour to start walking.
The faces of the other inmates are deformed with hate as she walks past. She won't miss a single one of them, not when she has either kicked the shit out of, or gotten her shit kicked out by almost everyone there. It is going to be nice to stop worrying if some other inmate was going to try and kill her for simply looking at them the wrong way.
She’s so happy to finally leave this hell she’s been living in for so long, but every step is loaded with the knowledge that she’s got no idea of how to live her life now. She never really had a home, almost no one from before they locked her up was still here, and those few that remained had changed so much, had lives of their own. Vi would have to start her life all over again, and for someone her age, the road was overwhelmingly steep.
Most of her worries start quieting down as she nears the exit of the building, and she starts walking faster, fearing that someone's going to realize this is all a mistake and shove her back in the cell. Absolutely nothing could be worse than what she was put through for the past twelve years.
She walks out to the parking lot with her few possessions in a plastic bag, wearing a blue worn down hoodie probably two sizes too small and an awful pair of striped pants that someone should've thrown away instead of donating. The wind and the chill of the outside feel different now that she's free, now that she can choose to stay there enjoying the fresh air for as long as she wants, or wherever to go next, and whenever the fuck she wants. Freedom felt foreign.
Vi feels the tears starting to gather when she spots the familiar electric blue hair. She sees Powder leaning in the hood of a car anxiously looking around while chewing on her thumb nail. The second she finally spots her, she shoots up and sits straight, but she clearly freezes. Vi is the one that approaches her slowly, until she’s standing a few feets away from her.
Powder had usually sent pictures along with her colorful letters, but it was still shocking to be greeted by a grown person instead of the kid still in her brain.
She almost can’t hear it, but Powder let’s out a shy Vi? that’s enough to make her react. A sob she didn’t realize she was holding escapes her, and she breaks the distance between them leaving her bag somewhere in the middle. She hugs her little sister so tight, exactly like she'd wished to do since she was taken away. It had been an entire decade since, and not one day had gone by that she didn’t think about her.
It takes Powder a second, but when she finally reacts, she hugs Vi back with truly impressive strength while clutching her hoodie.
"I missed you so much, Vi"
"I missed you too, Pow-Pow, so fucking much"
Her sister lets out a watery laugh at that.
"Sheesh, I haven't been called that in so long"
Powder broke away the hug first to dry her tears with the palms of her hands, never taking her eyes off of Vi, as if the pink haired girl would disappear again if she looked away for too long. Still, neither of them could take the huge smile off their teary faces.
She was incredibly happy to see her again, but it was also bitter. Those twelve years in prison were more than enough time for a lot of ugly feelings to fester and develop. For all the happiness and excitement seeing Powder again brought, there was an equal amount of guilt, and deep down, where Vi wouldn’t dare tapping into, resentment.
She shoves her hands in the hoodie's front pocket and stretches it down trying her best to focus on something else.
Powder finishes blowing up her nose, and seems to finally come back to herself. She is so different from what Vi remembered. In some way she expected to see the same child from twelve years ago, but in front of her was a full grown person that had lived an entire life Vi knew snippets of, watered down through letters and occasional phone calls. Her eyes were still the same though, and still looked at Vi like she was the best person in the world, even if she didn't deserve it.
Her sister then grabs her by the shoulders, and Vi lets herself be softly shaken by her.
"I have so fucking much to tell you"
********
Vi soon learns that Powder is a menace to society with her driving.
She drives fast, and only stops abruptly when she knows there’s absolutely no way to make the car speed up more to pass the traffic light, with no regard for anyone's neck.
They luckily stop at a drive through to get a good amount of so dearly missed junk food, and after they resume their way, Vi doesn’t stop gripping the handle on the car roof until they finally reach their destination.
The past few months in prison had been spent trying to organize where to go after her release, and luckily Powder had helped her find a place. It’s not a very nice neighborhood, and definitely not a great complex, but it’s the only thing that her modest savings from prison work could afford to rent, at least for a few months until she got a job.
When they walk into the one-room apartment she finds that her sister had stocked it with some essentials. There’s groceries for at least a couple of days, some basic hygiene products, and what had clearly been Powder’s interpretation of main necessities, like three boxes of the most childish and sugary cereal, and an impressive tower of assorted candy.
“I brought you some of my clothes too, but I doubt they’re gonna fit since you’ve gone all She-Hulk apparently”
Vi laughs at that. It must be shocking for Powder too, seeing how much she’s changed. After all, the last time they’d seen each other Vi was still a scrawny 17 year-old with a nose yet to be broken and several less scars. At first, the worst thing about prison had been the stillness of everything. She was used to moving constantly, jumping around, running and punching, so the only thing that stopped her from going crazy was training. Her new found hobby hadn’t really left her body much choice but to get bigger.
Solitary, she soon realized, was the real nightmare though. She didn’t have many options to move in a cell the size of a parking slot, so she’d spend every second she was locked in there punching. The walls were the closest thing to a training dummy that she could get there. Now, sitting on the couch of her new apartment, far away from that awful place, she clenches and unclenches her hands. Her scarred knuckles and the constant pain all the way from her elbows to the tips of her fingers would be a nice remainder of those times.
"So"
Powder's loud voice breaks the silence. She's now sitting on the counter and starts opening up the bags of food they’d just gotten while playfully kicking her legs. Vi sits on the small table in the kitchen, and barely catches the bag her sister throws her way.
“Where do we start?” Vi asks with a small smile, already filling her mouth with fries.
After that, they talk for so long. They have to fast forward through the past twelve years, and so much has happened during that time.
Powder tells her all about college; Vi’s not surprised she chose mechanical engineering. After all, she’d spent their entire childhood tearing down and rebuilding new things out of anything she could get her hands on. She's starting her second year and she couldn't love it more.
As her sister talks, Vi realizes truly how much she had changed. She now looks like an adult, moves and talks like one, as difficult as it is for her to comprehend. She had grown up so much; she was taller and had long braids almost down to her waist, and Vi could still catch little glimpses of the baby face she was used to. Even if she didn’t look particularly healthy with the prominent eyebags and pale skin, she certainly didn’t look as fragile as she did when she was a child.
She even has a full tattoo sleeve, that she apparently got as soon as she was old enough to, and proudly shows Vi that they actually go around her right arm, all the way to her shoulder and ribs. Powder had desperately wanted one after Vi started getting tattooed as a teen, but of course she was just a kid then. She still has a long way to catch up though, as Vi competitively proceeds to show she is now covered in them: legs, arms, back and even a very obvious one in her face.
It's not until Vi is through with two hamburgers and half a milkshake that they inevitably fall into the heavier topics.
She can’t help but ask her how she was holding up. Powder awkwardly talks about the few times she’s gone to rehab, and how she hasn’t had a bad day in a long time. Then she mentions Silco and how he had helped her through the worst, always being patient with her
His name makes Vi a little hot under the collar, though. He had adopted Powder not long after she was detained, and even though she’s happy her sister didn’t have to be alone in the system for much, she certainly didn’t like him. After all, he was the one that didn’t let her visit while she was in prison, and the one who liked to pretend Vi didn’t exist. Sometimes several months would go by where she wouldn’t hear from Powder, months that Vi would spend worrying about how and where her sister was, and if finally this was the time something really bad happened, knowing Silco would probably never bother to tell her.
Still, it’s like a weight lifts off her shoulders when Powder reassures her that she’s doing better. Even if she had been detained, it felt like she'd abandoned Powder, like she failed to do more and to do better. She'd failed in keeping her sister safe, and it's unnerving knowing that she's spent the past years with a stranger who she doesn’t particularly like, struggling with things that Vi couldn’t even help with, when she should have been the one to protect them both.
They’d both struggled a lot, first with the death of their parents, with being on their own for a while until Vander adopted them and gave them the happiest years of their life, and then with losing everything all over again after he passed. But Vi knew that Powder’s real issues were caused by what had gone down after that, which was mainly her fault, so she should’ve been there to make it better and help her through it. That thought quickly reminds her of the fact that protecting Powder was the reason she’d been locked up in the first place.
But she can't let that thought grow, even less so when her sister is sitting right in front of her, and showing her a video of her latest invention in a desperate attempt to change the subject.
********
They’re both shocked when they realize the time. The sun had gone down a long while ago, and it was getting late.
Powder awkwardly tells her she has an exam on Monday, and she should get back home sooner than later to prepare for it. She offers to spend the weekend together instead of studying, but Vi reassures her that it’s okay. She finally convinces her not to and instead prepare for the test when she reminds Powder that they have all the time in the world now. She can now come and go whenever she pleases, with no restrictions at all, and they can see each other whenever they want. Still, Powder leaves reluctantly and only after Vi promises she’ll go see her as soon as she’s done with that exam.
For the first time in the day she really gets to sit down and let everything wash over her. She looks at the TV, the couch, at the fridge that’s whirring with an oddly calming rhythm, and she realizes that she can use all that whenever she wants. No more forced routine, no more of that painfully uncomfortable furniture, and no more rushing to the line so there’s still food left by the time she gets served.
She takes her time in the shower, another thing she couldn’t do back there. Even if the plumbing is shitty and the water pressure is honestly sad, she realizes that it’s the first time that she’s alone in the last 12 years. There was always someone to look out for before, another inmate or a guard, and the danger was exactly the same. There’d be no more gratuitous beatings here, she could stop being constantly scared, and that wave of relief is enough to make her cry.
By the time she’s done, she realizes how truly worn out she is. As Powder guessed, none of the clothes she brought actually fit, so she leaves her pants off, and decides to sleep in a tank top. She should go and get clothes as soon as possible if she wants to look somewhat decent.
Tomorrow she’ll worry about all the things she has to do, and all that this new life would entail. But for now, she lets herself enjoy finally lying down on a comfortable surface, that even if it is a pull out couch, it’s definitely better than what she’d been sleeping on for the past twelve years.