Chapter Text
Looking back, Sophia didn't think she could identify a particular moment, a specific point, when she fell in love with Taylor Hebert. It was an agglomeration - Taylor's word, not hers. It should have been pathetic, humiliating, learning new vocabulary as a teenager, like she was a baby.
With Taylor, it wasn't.
That was just how she was.
Like out on patrol, when she'd decided to help a pre-school class on a field trip cross the street by teleporting them across. There was no pressing reason for it, and Vista had been on the console commenting acidly, but it had happened and it'd been hilarious.
Crossing roads was one of her favourite things, actually. Sophia had learnt that the first time they worked together, before the Wards, just after Emma had introduced them. Helping people load their cars for holidays, returning a stolen bike, popping into grocery stores. More than one autograph, as it happened.
The first time it had happened, Sophia had stayed crouched on a roof, stewing and stinging, because being a parahuman wasn't a joke, and Taylor, Blink - and what kind of name was that? - made it sound like it.
The tenth time, they'd done it together. Sort of. Sophia skulked a bit because her costume wasn't made for publicity. But there was adoration and awe and that was - that was nice. And when Taylor looked at her and asked, extended her hand, she went. She smiled like the sun.
The twentieth, they were delivering groceries for old Mrs Yamada. Taylor's dad had heard she'd had a nasty fall and the next thing Sophia knew of it, she was hauling two shopping bags up a drive way in shadow state, laughing and cursing in equal measure. Yamada offered them tea, which Taylor took, and Sophia didn't, pointing out she had a full face mask.
On the twenty first patrol, Taylor solemnly presented her with a straw.
They'd laughed nearly to the point of tears.
It wasn't just neighbourhood work, charity work. They were still heroes, and Sophia shared her lessons in that. First with a reluctance and a jealousy, but Taylor didn't hold it against her, and kept asking questions and commenting and drawing diagrams and - it was hard not to be enthusiastic.
They developed strategies, plans of attack. Taylor gave each one stupid names, with Emma's input, which Sophia pretended not to find funny. Executed them over and again. There were frictions, of course. The first time Sophia had tried to say that they should wait to see if someone fought back, prove they were a survivor and not just a victim - well, Taylor had heard three words of it before jumping down into the fight.
Sophia had followed her, obviously. She had to keep Emma's friend safe, was the logic. And then, with swiftness and a stealth because it surprised her to think it, she decided she had to keep her friend safe too. Even if she wore a blue tracksuit and a grin and made the worst puns before taking down villains.
The puns, Sophia was pretty sure, were designed to annoy her.
It didn't take her long to stop finding them such.
They, the three of them, Emma, Taylor, and her, were together in school too. Winslow was terrible, obviously, but it was brighter with them. Emma helped steer around cliques and drama, Taylor tutored her and - hah, she'd been so annoyed the first time and then so appreciative when the marks start coming in. Appreciative was a new thing for her. She thought she liked it.
She'd asked Taylor about that, actually. "You're smart enough to get into Arcadia," she said. "Why didn't you?"
Taylor had just smiled, guileless, because she didn't think Taylor knew any other way to smile. "I couldn't leave my friends behind, could I?"
That was the other thing about her.
Early November, a late night solo patrol. She'd been doing less and less of them, but Taylor was snowed in with work, and she'd thought - hell, why not? It went wrong. Badly. There was someone bleeding, a gang member, but that didn't mean he wasn't - that didn't mean she hadn't -
Shaking hands, numb fingers plugging in. It was well past midnight, but Taylor picked up on the first ring.
"Hey Sophs, what's happening?"
"I fucked up. Hurt someone bad." The blood was black, soaking into the man's shirt. He was E88, sure. Scum. Didn't mean he should die for it.
"Where are you? I'm on my way."
She came, within minutes. Slippers and pyjamas - blue flannel, domino mask, with little green aliens on them. Rigged a tourniquet, called in an ambulance, and why hadn't Sophia thought of that, why - stood with her when the PRT came.
She could have left. Sophia told her to leave. "My fault," she said. "I'll take the fall. I'm not dragging you into this."
Taylor just held her hand, fingers interlacing, and didn't say anything.
Velocity was the cape on scene, walking towards them, past the perimeter of paramedics, hands spread - no threat. As though any parahuman was ever not a threat.
"Hey," he said. "Good work calling it in."
"It was an accident," Sophia said, numbly.
"Yeah."
"I'm sorry."
"It happens. You did just the right thing in this situation. Really."
"It was Blink, not me. Who did the right thing, I mean," she said, and pointed, lamely, as though Velocity couldn't see Taylor standing right there.
"Huh." Velocity looked at her. "New costume?"
"You did say my old one was pretty bad," she said. Light and teasing and defusing. Sophia knew what she was doing, what he was doing. It helped, at least a little bit.
"Not sure if that's better." A pause. "You know, if you joined the Wards, you could get a proper outfit budget."
The softest of soft sells. Not even that. A joke, without no expectation of success. They'd been asked before, and turned it down.
Not that time. Not when - not when it had almost gone so badly wrong. Sophia had been sure and unsure at once, vacillating - another Taylor word - almost daily. Join, or not. Hang up her crossbows for good, or not. Then Taylor said she'd be going into the Wards and wanted to know if Sophia could come with her.
She did.
—
"Emma," Sophia said, pacing - she liked pacing when she thought, or when she was nervous, or - well, just moving. Was good. "Do you think Taylor likes me?"
Emma sat recumbent on the couch in her living room, a queen in state by posture and character. With the Barnes at college or work, they had the house to themselves, and Taylor was still shadowing the New York Wards for another week. Emma lowered her fashion magazine the barest fraction.
"In a friend way? Or in a 'this is going to be the longest conversation of my life' way?"
"I - uh. The second, I'm pretty sure?"
"Awesome."
"So - do you think…?"
"I don't know. Do you like her?"
Sophia didn't know entirely what to say to that. It had been a couple of months since Taylor had stood by her, since they'd joined the Wards together. In reality - since Taylor had joined the Wards for her. She'd loved her independence as Blink, and while she was enjoying working in the Wards well enough, it wasn't really the same.
Step, step, turn - phase through sofa - step.
"I think I do, yeah."
One of the hardest sentences she'd said. But it felt - right. Or at least closer to right. Not entirely but a decent approximation of a hundred hundred moments. Dramatic ones, like that time they'd taken Rune down or distracted Lung. But quieter ones, too. Quieter ones, more so. Drinking tea and coffee on a rooftop in a balmy evening. Listening to Taylor and Victoria argue the finer points of 18th century literary historiography - and she'd never thought so dully mundane of a topic could be made so fascinating.
Just throw two beautiful women at it.
And Taylor was, at that.
She'd been silent for a long time, or at least she thought she had, Emma looking at her with concern. She slumped down next to her.
"I just - fuck. I don't even know if she likes girls."
"Oh, she does."
"You're sure?"
"Very." Emma was grinning in that Emma way, to wit wide and smug, cat-that-got-the-cream style. Sophia decided not to enquire further of her own volition into that.
"That's one thing. But we're friends, and I don't want to ruin it. What if I ask and it makes things really awkward and tense?"
Sophia was good at awkward. She tried not to be, because there was an image to maintain, and - and a lot of things. But she could see it already, spilling out in her mind's eye. The polite confusion, a nervous smile slipping onto Taylor's face, a re-evaluation of everything that happened since they'd met. Polite laughter and a 'I like you as a friend, Sophs.' She'd probably start saying Sophia, actually. Nicknames might give the wrong idea.
"Do you really think she'd look at you any differently?" Emma asked.
"I don't want to risk it."
"I could ask for you?"
"No, definitely not. That would be worse." That would be cowardly, and Sophia wasn't a coward. She wasn't. She wasn't weak, she wasn't afraid.
"You're sure? I could drop some hints. You know, just girl chat."
Sophia didn't really know. Not many other friends. Which was precisely the problem. Well, no. It was one of many problems, interlinked and interlocked and interweaved. Hah. Tricolon. Taylor would be proud of her for using it. Her brother would just tease her, her mom was of no use whatsoever in that or any other department, and she was not about to go anywhere near Steven.
The Wards? Maybe. They were friendly enough and knew both of them. Even if Carlos kept calling her Hagia and then laughing obscurely. But gossip spread. Especially if it made its way back to Dennis, and with the way Taylor and Dennis got on - and she tried not to think too hard about that - he'd definitely spill the beans.
No. If she was going to go ahead with it, and she was, she had to do it honestly. Up front.
She just didn't know how.
"Right," Emma said, pulling her from her reverie again and that was mortifying in its own way. "You're hopeless and clearly you need to plan."
"Isn't it better to just confess these things?"
"If you're a child, yes." Her tone shifted, quieter and gentler. "Look, it's scary. I get it. We handle this sort of thing in different ways, and I think research and planning ahead might help a bit. At least it'll let you get your thoughts in order, so you don't get confused."
"Thanks, that really helps, actually."
"You're welcome," Emma said. "I took it from Alexandria's episode of Sesame Street."
Regardless of provenance, Sophia thought, it was good advice. She wasn't going to over-plan, like Armsmaster or whoever. But she'd do her research, get an approach sorted. Ensure that when she asked, it would be perfect.
Taylor deserved the best, after all.