Chapter Text
Beatrice was five years old when she saw her first superhero. By that time, heroes - and villains - had been commonplace for nearly a decade, but that didn't make them any less impressive, at least in the eyes of impressionable youth. She had a distinct memory of watching two brightly-costumed figures fly directly overhead, trading blows with flaming fists and glowing daggers, before her mother yanked her into the nearest shop.
"Mum! Did you see-?"
"Hush, Beatrice."
"But-"
And here, once they were far away from the door, out of sight of the real, live superhero battle, her mother knelt down and gripped Beatrice by her thin shoulders, fixing her with a stern look of disapproval - not the first or last such look she'd receive in her life, but no less disappointing to have directed at her.
"Beatrice," her mother had said, half exasperated sigh, half impatient bark - her signature tone. "Listen to me. Keep your nose out of that superhuman nonsense. It's not for people like us to get involved in, understand? If you're smart, you'll just turn the other way and live a normal life." Then, with nothing more to say on the matter, she'd dropped her hands from Beatrice's shoulders, stood, and ushered her daughter deeper into the shop.
And Beatrice was smart, but she was the kind of smart who thought for herself. Despite her mother's words that day, she had continued to observe superhumanity with the same keen eye she applied to all other matters in life. Her parents, who held well-respected positions on the conservative end of the political spectrum that left little time for frivolous activities like spending time with their only daughter, hardly noticed this or any other fascination of Beatrice's. And so it was that in amongst her studies on literature, mathematics, history, and the myriad pretentious topics a private boarding school liked to teach, Beatrice found a passion in the intricacies of superhumans and their impact on society. Almost nothing in her personal life held as much interest for her, at least until she reached puberty and came to acknowledge the rather inconvenient fact that she was gay.
She was also, as it turned out, very bad at hiding this fact from her homophobic parents.
Her nine months of the year at boarding school became twelve months from year nine onward. Upon completing her eleventh year, Beatrice received a check for ten thousand pounds and a one-page letter from her parents stating they "appreciated" her dedication to her studies and hoped she went on to accomplish great things in 6th form and beyond, but would rather she not come home again until she "came to her senses."
Beatrice allowed herself one night of tears and self-pity. The next morning, she locked all of that away, tossed the letter in the bin, and opened a new bank account with the check before her parents had time to second guess themselves on even that.
She found a job taking inventory in a supermarket to help support herself through 6th form, and by the time she entered university, she had worked her way up to manager. It was, of course, not the path she'd intended to follow in life, but life had a funny way of working itself out.
Fourteen months, two weeks, and five days into her coursework in psychology and superhuman law, Beatrice was approached by an austere woman sporting a long scar down the right side of her face with a most interesting job offer. She was interrupted in the midst of her usual late-evening balancing act of reviewing sales figures and writing an essay for one of her classes. The confident knock at the closed door of her office in the back of the supermarket startled her out of focus on crafting a coherent thesis for her paper, and she looked up from her laptop to see the knocker already inviting herself in.
The woman introduced herself as Suzanne, one of the top operatives at an agency Beatrice had never heard of, but wanted very much to learn more about after her visitor explained its purpose. The Office of Covert Services - OCS. Dedicated to "picking up superhuman slack, more or less," Suzanne informed her. "We clean up their messes and aid in their work as necessary."
"And what does this have to do with me?" Beatrice had asked. Wariness and curiosity battled in her mind as the woman across from her leaned back and folded her hands in her lap, fixing Beatrice with an unwavering stare.
"Your university work is impressive, to say the least. It has caught the attention of one of our operatives, who passed your name along to those whose job it is to identify candidates for training and eventual hire into the agency."
"One of your operatives? Do you have someone inside the university?"
The agent flashed the barest hint of a smile. "I'm sure you remember Professor Vincent Iglesias. He was particularly impressed with your essay on the sociopolitical impacts of superhuman battles in isolated regions."
Beatrice raised her eyebrows. "Professor Iglesias?" In front of her, her paper with the half-written thesis disappeared, replaced with the colorful bubbles on a black backdrop that made up her laptop's screensaver. Beatrice barely noticed. "He thinks I should work for this... OCS?"
"He recommended you as a potential candidate," Suzanne said. "Our research department then looked into you further to determine if you were a good one."
"I see," Beatrice replied, not sure how she felt about nameless strangers poking into her past. Not that she had anything much to hide, but still, whatever sense of privacy she'd had was diminished somewhat at that news.
"You would be in training until you complete university," Suzanne went on to explain. "The training is rigorous and time-consuming, so you would have to leave your job here, but the OCS will offer a generous stipend to make up for it. Once your degree and training are complete, you are evaluated for a permanent position in the agency and, if accepted, assigned to a team."
"Doing what, exactly?"
Suzanne shrugged. "It depends on the course your training takes and the fields you take interest in, but options range from administrative and legal support to field operations."
Beatrice had remained silent for a long moment after that, contemplating everything she'd been told, but also everything she hadn't.
Covert operations suggested a certain level of secrecy even in one's personal life, perhaps even renouncing all ties to her former life once she graduated university and became an agent. But as it stood, Beatrice's personal ties were almost nonexistent. She hadn't spoken to her family in years, her few attempts at dating thus far had crashed and burned, and she was pretty sure you had to do more with people than study for exams or work on group projects in order to consider them friends. In short, Beatrice had little to give up, and no one from whom she would struggle to keep secrets. Her closest acquaintance was her boss at the supermarket, and while he might be a bit disappointed to lose their Sunday afternoon tea-and-chess meetings, she didn't think he would have much trouble finding a replacement for her.
After a long few minutes, Suzanne had leaned forward and offered Beatrice one raised eyebrow. "So. What do you say?"
Beatrice shifted in her seat, spine straightening, as final deliberations flicked through her mind. Finally, she gave one sharp nod. "I accept."
Two years later, after blazing her way through university and training alike, Beatrice found herself a field agent, pleased with her accomplishments and also very glad it hadn't all turned out to be some sort of elaborate human trafficking plot. She'd accepted the promotion from trainee to agent seven months earlier, and had been welcomed onto a team with a couple of familiar faces - their team leader Suzanne, better known to her colleagues by the semi-joking moniker 'Mother Superion', and Camila, a fellow new recruit who had befriended Beatrice during their weapons training. The rest of their small, elite team consisted of four other women; Mary, Lilith, Dora, and Yasmine, each with their unique specialties. And in them, Beatrice had found true friends for the first time in her life.
"Lilith, I swear to God, if you don't stop tapping that pen, I'm gonna ram it down your throat," Mary growled from across the conference table where they'd been discussing their latest mission for the last two hours.
Beatrice blinked wearily at the intelligence report she'd been reading and glanced up in time to see Lilith smirk at Mary and give her pen another deliberate whack against the wooden tabletop. When Mary's fists clenched, Beatrice bit back a huff of amusement and raised a placating hand.
"Perhaps it's time to call it a night."
At the head of the table, Mother Superion nodded her agreement and stood. "Beatrice is right. The day has been a long one and I'm sure we're all tired. We can continue this in the morning." Her tone brooked no argument - not that any of them had much energy to do so - and with that, they began packing up their things and filing out of the room.
"Hey, tomorrow's Friday," Camila observed, striding down the hall with an enviable lack of exhaustion. "Anyone up for a karaoke night this weekend?"
"It's cute that you still act like we get weekends off," Mary teased.
Camila simply smiled her typical sunny smile and shrugged. "You never know, we may not get called in. It doesn't hurt to make plans."
"It does if those plans are a date you have to cancel," Mary grumbled.
Terrible dating lives, Beatrice had learned, was one of the things she had in common with her newfound sisters, for one reason or another. In Beatrice's case, it was lack of trying, but it seemed Mary's was just plain bad luck that they always seemed to clash with the job.
"So, does that mean you're free for karaoke?" Camila asked.
Mary huffed and rolled her eyes, but her feigned annoyance was undercut by the grin threatening the corners of her mouth. "If by karaoke, you mean I get to sit back and drink while y'all make fools of yourselves on a badly-lit stage, then yeah, I'm in."
"Great!" Camila clapped and hopped mid-stride.
In the elevator down to the main floor of OCS headquarters, she managed to coerce the remaining team members - minus Mother Superion, who somehow always managed to vanish just before any plans were made to hang out outside of work - into agreeing to the karaoke night. Beatrice had no intention of singing or drinking, but she still enjoyed a night out with her friends on occasion, and Camila was difficult to turn down.
"Okay, see you all tomorrow!" Camila waved. To Lilith, she asked, "Can I still get a ride home?"
"Of course." After offering her own quick wave to the others, Lilith headed off to her car with Camila trailing behind.
"See ya," Mary said, and headed in the opposite direction toward her motorcycle.
"Do you want a ride tonight, Beatrice?" Dora asked. They lived in the same direction, and Dora often dropped Beatrice off on her way home. But the weather was nice tonight - the temperature mild and a rare lack of clouds providing a brilliant, if somewhat light-polluted, view of the stars - and she fancied walking the twelve blocks to her flat.
"No. Thank you though, Dora. I think I'll walk tonight."
Dora smiled and nodded, then glanced to Yasmine.
"I'll take the ride, thanks," said Yasmine. "I'm beat, and the bus doesn't come for another twenty minutes."
"See you both tomorrow, then," Beatrice said as they departed, then hitched her bag higher on her shoulder, patted the knife holstered under her jacket to confirm its presence, and headed off down the street toward home.
Beatrice was about halfway home when her phone buzzed in her pocket. Sighing, she pulled it out and tapped at the screen, expecting a summons back to work by Mother Superion, but it was only a group text from Camila providing the details for their karaoke night. She chuckled softly and dropped her phone into her bag, which slid down her shoulder a bit at the sudden additional weight.
Focused as she was on readjusting the shoulder strap to a more comfortable position, Beatrice barely stopped short in time to avoid the rain of broken glass that followed a shattering noise overhead. Startled, but drawing on the training ingrained into her, she took a step back and reached for her knife at the same time her eyes tracked the rain of glass up to a broken window eight stories above her. A second later, a body followed the glass. Flailing limbs and what looked to be a hospital gown dropped like a stone towards the pavement below.
Beatrice could only watch the descent in helpless horror, flinching at the sound of cracking bones when person and pavement finally met. Unsurprisingly, the person - a young woman, as far as Beatrice could tell - lay completely still in front of her. The woman was close enough to reach out and nudge with her foot, but the shock of the situation wore off enough for her to come to her senses, and she stepped forward to lean over the broken form. The fingers of her knife-free hand reached out to brush away strands of bloodied dark hair so she could feel for a pulse.
In the same moment her fingers made contact, a brilliant golden glow burst from the woman's back. Beatrice had to squint against the brightness, hand pulling away from the woman's neck to shield her eyes as the woman gasped in a breath and attempted to sit upright on the sidewalk with a blood-gargled curse.
Beatrice was no stranger to the unusual. She dealt with superhero business for a living, after all. Still, it was rather remarkable to watch someone seemingly come back to life before your eyes.
She couldn't help but gape as the woman's uncoordinated limbs scrabbled against the glass-strewn pavement, trying to stand despite what had to be severe injuries. After a few seconds of this, she finally seemed to realize she had an audience, and paused with hands and knees pressed into sharp glass. Wide brown eyes met Beatrice's own from behind loose strands of hair.
She's beautiful, was Beatrice's first - wildly inappropriate - thought. But it was true, despite the blood and bruises.
Her second, more useful thought was that the woman was clearly in some kind of trouble. And despite her shock, Beatrice had enough presence of mind to realize that she should probably get her away from the building she'd just managed to escape. Questions could come later.
As if reading her mind, the woman reached out and grabbed the hand Beatrice had left hovering in front of her face. "I need to get out of here," she wheezed through bloodied lips. "Please, help me."