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There's beauty in silence. It's something he's learned to appreciate, though not by choice. There's a focusing element to it, his mind forced to centre on the task at hand. Some used music to aid in their workouts, but, laying there on the bench, struggling with thirty pounds of steel and iron, Liam Richards prefers the sound of…nothing.
Silence can only do so much; however, its powers aren't infinite. No, there's little doubt in Liam's mind. He fucking hates weight training.
PRT regulations state he should have a certain competency in close-quarters combat, his personal trainer says he needs to get bigger, and his mother? Well, she sits in her wheelchair, takes five pills a day at a cost of three hundred dollars and tells him she loves him, regardless of what he does.
The answer is simple. More weight training.
His sigh goes unheard, earbuds leaving him in an eerie world on mute. There's another minute of sweat and struggle before he gives in for the day, enough, finally enough.
The next steps are rote; It's a routine within the routine. Gasp for air, re-rack the weight, feel cripplingly inadequate, and finally, reluctantly, re-enter a world of sound and fury.
“…eighty-one…eighty-two…eighty-three…”
He'd never thought the last part was so literal until he shared a session with Missy.
Sweat and vinyl hang heavy in the air, like an incense towards effort. Liam ponders this while sipping on a bottle of water, now disappointingly lukewarm, all the while resting on ‘his’ bench. It's only a few minutes, just enough for his heart rate to slow and skin to cool, but it's adequate.
It also gives him time to observe.
Evaluating his teammates was an underrated yet critical part of being a leader in his opinion. The books tended to lowball it, half a chapter at best, yet that seemed ill-advised. Sensing the ebb and flow of moods could halt problems before they become mission-critical disasters. How was that a two-page average? He was running a team of traumatised teens, for god’s sake!
The forest was breath-taking beautifully chaotic yet alive with wildlife, all at a constant chirp or chitter. It was more than a city boy like Liam had ever seen in his thirteen years. A rare vacation, parents busy saving, saving, saving. He'd cottoned on early; idle promises of something for ‘good behaviour’ and even fewer birthday presents than normal were all the hints he needed. Yet he played along, why ruin the fun?
Missy was…interesting.
The girl was stubborn, determined to prove herself, and very much sunk into the mask. His paperwork had said as much, yet it was a different kettle of fish to bear witness. Being rotated in from Phoenix to replace Clockblocker as Ward's ENE Leader did not endear him with his new teammates; even two months later he still felt off base, like every hand stretched out was rebuffed.
“…one hundred three…one hundred four…”
Watching this girl, with her godawful haircut, liberal number of scars, and impressively defined triceps, Liam realised something. Crushing his push-up record aside, this was the longest he'd spent with Missy outside of costume.
He needed to rectify that.
It was a backhanded compliment that set the ball in motion barely two weeks later. Patrol with Vista that day had been simple, stress-free, and irritatingly quiet, just like all the others. Then their newest member opened her trap mere minutes on their return to the Ward's common room, eyes alight as she leapt from the console.
“You're paranoid about your identity, right, Crucible?”
“I am professional , is what you're looking for, Toggle,” he says, words carefully measured. Alari was the first teammate he'd connected with, depressingly. Yet, that didn't give the fourteen-year-old carte blanche to make him look foolish.
“Potato, po-tah-to. Only I've got this guy in school and he-”
Liam tunes it out in favour of the dull ache radiating from his feet. Alari has been asking the same question for a week now, one Ward at a time, each giving her the same answer. It's not irritating as such, just time-consuming. She's not entirely wrong though. He is paranoid, or cautious, or pragmatic, or however else you want to gussy it up. It's a necessary precaution.
He saw what happened to Freezerburn.
Shooing the girl away with the same stock answer she'd heard several times over, he recoils at the weight of a hand on his shoulder. ‘Crucible's’ costume Is tough, bullet and stab-resistant, yet not particularly tactile. So it's a brief shock to find Missy grasping him, her gaze intense without the visor to diffuse it.
“…everything ok?” He eventually asks, heartbeat speeding up as the seconds pass, and she never seems to blink, never ever-
“I need advice.” She finally says, voice hollow and strained. “Clothing. Something to help break up ‘Vista’ and-” she pauses, puffing air out of her nostrils “- Missy.”
There are options. He could pass her to PR, people who studied for this and made a living out of micromanaging the line between hero and human. They were cold, even dispassionate at times, but had rock-solid advice.
Or he could take a chance.
Liam's bowels turn to ice as he wrestles with the idea. He wanted this, but there's a difference between wanting and doing. The untarnished idea versus the threat of failure. It feels like an eternity before he finally nods, sweaty palms grasping tightly to his utility belt pen as the time and location are written on flesh, calluses stark on her willing hand.
It's less a cliff and more a canyon, or a gully, or maybe a ‘sheer drop’? What it is isn't exactly important, though, more that the view is stunning. Sunset dapples across the treetops below, a sky aflame that makes even the most mundane rock shine like the stars he saw, truly saw, for the first time last night. It's only been three days, but he feels as if they'll last in his memory forever, stuck in psychic amber, perfectly preserved.
It's a blustery March morning when Missy arrives, and Liam can't help but take a small measure of pride in the shock etched across her face when he raises a hand in greeting. She knows Crucible, the greens, and oranges of his costume are vibrantly distinctive. Liam she's seen, sweatpants and cheap tee’s with a duffle bag all ready to leave after a hard day's work.
Liam Richards, however, is a world apart from that. Heat-straightened hair, black as the eyeliner he took five minutes to apply, splay across his vision in a distinctive fringe. It's not tactically sound, but neither is the mixture of plaid and a charcoal grey scarf doing little to keep him truly warm this time of year.
‘See but be unseen’ wasn't just a maxim from bad ninja movies.
Missy doesn't return the greeting, shuffling through the weekend flotsam in her jeans and hoodie like another ant in the hill. He'd tried it once, but it seemed too obvious, too cliché.
“Hey,” she finally says, a nervous glance over the shoulder immediately putting Liam on edge.
“Are you ok?” It's just a few steps into her personal space, but he can already tell the familiar scent of Old Spice and…tobacco? It's something to be remembered for later, current concern overtaking long term.
“Yeah,” she eventually sighs, still looking away. “Just wanted to make sure my Mom wasn't hanging around.”
“Ah.”
He knows what he's read. It isn't pretty, but neither is it his place to pry. If, and god willing, when, Missy trusts him enough, she'll open up.
With a gesture on his part, they begin to amble along the renovated and thriving boardwalk.
“There you are, champ!” his father says, brushing leaf litter from a thrift store jacket so well-loved it was more patch than fabric at this point. “We've finished packing up the car and wondered where you'd gotten to.”
Before he can reply, a distinctive whistle fills the air. It's odd but appreciative, no doubt aimed at the dipping sun. A crescendo of beauty in nature's orchestra, or so his mother says seconds later.
“No wonder you've been here so long,” she adds, her whistle long passed as the three of them gaze across the cliff edge. The air is crisp, full of a thousand lives in organic harmony.
Then the ground shakes.
Liam had a modicum of experience with the opposite sex, unlike his peers, and thus held certain expectations of the day. ‘Vista’ was a tough-as-nails cape, even with the feminine sheen they'd tried to layer on top. Subterfuge, and his recommendations, suggested they look for something light, airy even. More valley girl than ‘hardened superheroine’.
Instead, he'd been dragged to an ironically small, Big-And-Tall.
“Pockets,” had been her only answer at the time, and there he couldn’t complain. Even if it was becoming a nightmare finding something that fit Missy, herself being more on the short and small size when it came to clothing.
Still, Liam was patient and helped where he could. He may have looked like a dejected boyfriend as the collection of cast-offs grew by the minute, but his pride held firm. Even with the pointed glares he received from the staff while standing outside Missy's dressing room. It hadn't been that long.
“I think I got something!”
Curiosity piqued, both at what had finally caught her attention and the excitement in Missy's voice, Liam watched as the door opened and his teammate stepped out.
It was definitely not what he'd been expecting today.
She was a picture in scattered parts that became a unique whole. Her hair, a sloppy tomboyish cut, accentuated the dark button-up shirt, its crisp collar razor sharp. A tie she'd grabbed earlier, ugly in its own way, managed to save her chocolate brown slacks. Even the pretentious grey waistcoat worked somehow. Where she'd gotten the chunky wristwatch from though he couldn't be certain, yet it finished the look; a cherry on top of the proverbial Sundae
“W- What do you think?”
Preppy, dignified, and certainly not feminine. Those were the first things that came to mind; yet like all good things they needed a bit of thought.
“You look different.” He said, vagueness giving him more time to workshop, “Good different, though!”
“Not too… girly?”
“God no,” he chuckled before catching his breath, “I mean-not unless you want…”
By the time he'd blurted out his save, she'd already disappeared, slipping back into the changing room.
Clothes were rung up, cash was exchanged, and Liam soon found himself window shopping before the two settled into a delightfully grungy café, sipping crappy coffee while gazing at passerbys.
“Liam,” Missy said, breaking the comfortable silence. “Can you do me a favour, please?”
He nods without hesitation.
“I know my mom snoops around at-” she suddenly leans in, aware of the other customers, “-work. She's a bit of a control freak, who I see, what I wear, that kind of thing. So, could you keep this a secret? Just between friends?”
His chest warms at the last word, even as a black mood begins to filter in.
“Sure thing, Missy. I know how to keep a secret.”
Time slows like molasses running down a jar, his mother's body crumpled among the rocks below; she's small, so very small. His father is already halfway there, gravity lost, and as he stands on the torn-away rubble of the rocky edge it's as if an entire galaxy's stars light up behind Liam's eyes. He doesn't know how or why, but reaching out he flexes a newly discovered muscle and something…stops.
It's a bubble. Pale blue and glowing, it hovers in mid-air holding his father. The smile they share is frantic, one of the dangers just missed and there-for-the-grace-of-god-go-I.
Then the bubble flares like a million acetylene torches, and what's left isn't even enough to fill a lunchbox.
He's very good at it.