Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Icarus has been missing for weeks. 

Couriway has been missing for longer. 

One night, after he and Feinberg had an argument, Feinberg went to bed and when he woke up, his roommate was gone.

Feinberg tried calling him. It went straight to voicemail every time. 

Feinberg tracked down every mutual friend or acquaintance he could find. No one had seen him.

Heroes conducted search and rescue operations for their missing comrade. None were successful. 

Stranger still, Feinberg was never evicted from his apartment. After the month crossed from June to July, Feinberg thought for sure someone would come knocking, but they didn’t. 

Feinberg got calls from a few people he didn’t know, claiming to be Couriway’s friends—his hero coworkers, Feinberg assumed—asking with no small amount of suspicion if he knew where Couriway was. 

Feinberg answered honestly.

“He didn’t come home one night,” Feinberg told them. “All his stuff is still here. I haven’t even touched it.”

Feinberg was investigated and cleared of wrongdoing.

The primary hypothesis was kidnapping. Feinberg doubted it. He ran the facts over in his head hundreds if not thousands of times. 

The Winged Hero? Kidnapped? Unlikely. 

Even more unlikely is the lack of traces. If Icarus were abducted, he would have left traces behind so authorities could follow them and find him.

Even if he hadn’t, he would have broken free by now. 

The secondary hypothesis was murder. 

Feinberg doubted that even more. He knows his roommate. He knows his friend. 

Icarus wouldn’t have gone down without a fight. Couriway wouldn’t have gone down without notifying Feinberg.

Wherever Couriway went, he went willingly. Without saying a word to Feinberg.

Feinberg suspected foul play. More specifically, he suspected Fruitberries’s involvement. 

To what extent, he wasn’t sure. He’d done his own investigating, but he was still injured, so he couldn’t do as much as he wanted, and it infuriated him.

Come August, no one had made any progress. Not the heroes, not the police, not Feinberg.

There was one ace up Feinberg’s sleeve he’d refused to play until now. 

Fine.

Fine could make Fruitberries show himself with barely a breath. One appearance anywhere remotely public would do it. Fruitberries would track him down in minutes. The supervillain has eyes all over the city. 

Even if Fruitberries hadn’t kidnapped Icarus, he’d know something. 

The price Feinberg would have to pay for that something is what concerns him.

Feinberg was running out of options. Were he to be in danger, Couriway was running out of time.

So that’s how Feinberg wound up meeting with Fruitberries under the pretense of accepting Fruitberries’s invitation to join him—the very invitation that put Feinberg in the hospital for weeks.

It was stupid. Reckless. Any conceivable outcome would end up with Feinberg in a worse spot than he is now, but it was all he could do. He’d exhausted every other option.

He needed information. Feinberg would figure out the fine print later.

Feinberg checks his watch. 3:29 AM, it reads.

Of course Fruitberries would never agree to meet in broad daylight, but Feinberg dreaded a repeat of their first meeting, so they compromised on a relatively well-lit area of the city’s largest park. It was dotted with hiking paths that led to various rest areas and campsites. 

Fruitberries chose one of the campsites. Feinberg agreed on the condition that it was one of the sites at the base of the mountain in the center of the park. He was not trying to get shoved off a cliff.

Before he left, Feinberg informed Raddles of where he was going. She’d begged him to reconsider, or at least let her tag along, but Feinberg refused. Bringing along another person could easily scare Fruitberries off, no matter how badly he wanted to sink his fangs into Fine. Raddles finally let him go with a parting gift of a long-range taser.

I trust you know how to use it, doctor, she’d teased.

“Fine,” someone drawls, tearing Feinberg’s attention away from his thoughts. He sits up on the wooden bench he was relaxing against.

Feinberg starts. He knows that voice. He missed that voice.

Icarus steps out of the darkness, into the shivering spotlight of a nearby trail light. He’s wearing a sly grin on his lips, like the one he sports when he manages to get on Feinberg’s nerves, but… odd. Wrong.

Something is wrong.

Feinberg waves noncommittally, even as his heart begins to pound against his ribs. He couldn’t make a sound if he tried. 

He studies Icarus as the missing hero saunters closer. He emits an air of confidence that is entirely unfamiliar to Feinberg. 

Feinberg didn’t see Icarus work often, but he knows that relaxed, easy gait. It doesn’t belong to him.

It belongs to Fruitberries.

Icarus stops, basking in the dim glow of the trail light. “You know, the boss said you’d be looking for me.”

Feinberg doesn’t realize he’s on his feet until he takes a tentative step toward Icarus despite himself, drawn to the hero like the moon to the Earth.

Feinberg snaps out of it. He adjusts his mask, making sure his voice modulator is switched on. “Where’s Fruitberries?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” The cruel lilt to Icarus’s tone doesn’t belong to him.

It’s wrong. Everything is wrong.

“Fruitberries sent me to collect you.” Icarus shrugs. “I told him I wasn’t interested, you know, after what you did.” He taps a finger to his chin thoughtfully. “Or, I guess it’s more of what you didn’t do.”

What I didn’t do?

Icarus’s hand disappears back into the pocket of his coat. “Boss told me something that may change your mind, though. He said to tell you that if you heal me, he’ll let you off the hook.”

Feinberg’s head is spinning. Fruitberries is Icarus’s boss now? Is this a nightmare?

Feinberg rolls his shoulders in an attempt to relax the tension in his muscles. “Off the hook? For what?”

There’s a twinge of something in Icarus’s expression, though Feinberg can’t identify what. 

This isn’t right. Couriway has always been an open book to Feinberg. What changed?

Whatever caused Icarus to grimace, it’s gone now. “For attacking that civilian. The one I dragged to the hospital. You know that one, don’t you?”

For attacking… himself?

Feinberg’s heart climbs into his throat and nestles there.

Icarus doesn’t know that Fine and Feinberg are one and the same. Of course Fruitberries would use that to his advantage.

No, this man isn’t Icarus. This is some sort of wicked imitation. Icarus—Couriway—would never join forces with someone like Fruitberries, much less do the supervillain’s dirty work.

“No. I don’t recall.” Feinberg struggles to keep his voice steady as his breath thins.

It’s not a lie, but it’s not the truth either.

“Maybe this will jog your memory then,” Icarus drawls, sending a chill down Feinberg’s spine before the hero becomes a blur of motion, charging in Feinberg’s direction.

Feinberg stumbles backward, his calves meeting the bench and stealing his balance from him. He crumples into a heap against the wood, catching the gleam of a knife as it barely misses where his stomach was.

Feinberg can’t believe his eyes. 

Icarus just tried to stab him.

The hero in question steps away, twirling the knife between his fingers. “Hm. Boss told me your reflexes were good, but this… is pathetic.”

“Boss?” Feinberg finds he can’t move. He grips the seat of the bench with so much force the wood splinters into his gloves. “How’d you end up with him?”

Icarus’s features scrunch, wiping the grin from his face. He looks more like himself now, but the churning in Feinberg’s gut only grows stronger. 

“I’m surprised you don’t know. I was… bested in combat by some criminals. Took my wings. Fruitberries found me. He promised you could heal them back, but, well… you know the rest.”

Feinberg almost gags. His voice is hoarse as he speaks. “They took your wings?”

“Don’t play dumb, Fine. You knew exactly what happened to me when you refused to heal me.” Icarus leans closer to Feinberg, knife poised to slit his throat. Feinberg swallows reflexively, acutely aware of the sweat dripping down his neck.

Feinberg glances at the knife, then up at Icarus. He can’t see the ex-hero’s eyes behind his goggles, but he can imagine the anger in Icarus’s irises. 

Anger directed at him. Feinberg. 

“I don’t—“ Feinberg stammers, giving up on feigning composure. “I don’t understand. You never— I haven’t seen you in… in weeks.”

“Yeah, because you deserted us,” Icarus snarls, his breath hot enough to fog his goggles. 

Feinberg’s breath, on the other hand, is cold in his lungs. “I— I deserted you?”

You deserted me, Feinberg wants to say. He wants to grab Icarus by the stupid fur collar of his stupid jacket and beg him to snap out of it so they can go home.

Instead, Feinberg squirms away from the knife at his neck. This has to be a joke. Some kind of sick, twisted prank. He waits with bated breath for Icarus to pull away, laughing that carefree, bubbling laugh, giggling himself to hysterics about the look on Feinberg’s face. 

“I told you to stop acting stupid, Fine,” Icarus seethes. “If you insist upon it, I’ll have to cut my losses… namely, you.”

The knife presses against Feinberg’s neck hard enough to draw blood. White-hot panic shoots down Feinberg’s spine.

“Couri, stop!”

Feinberg stares, wide-eyed, as Icarus withdraws the knife. Feinberg hisses as the scrape on his neck meets the chilly night air.

“How do you know my name?” Icarus whispers, fear seeping through his facade. “Did he tell you?”

It’s the most like himself that Icarus has sounded all night. 

Feinberg seizes the opportunity. “I’ll explain if you explain.”

Icarus is quiet for a while. “Explain what?”

“Everything that happened. From the moment you disappeared to now.” 

Icarus’s fingers twitch around the handle of the knife. “And if I don’t?”

Feinberg shrugs. “You’ll have to settle for killing me, I guess. Though I'll warn you, I’m pretty hard to kill.”

“Hmm,” Icarus hums, considering. “Well, you clearly aren’t a threat. Fine. If you heal me, I’ll tell you.”

“Deal,” Feinberg says, leaving out the fact that he’d agree to heal Icarus no matter what.

“I was coming home from work,” Icarus recites. “Some nut jobs pretending to be subordinates of Fruitberries cornered me, and…” Icarus trails off. Pauses. His fists clench at his sides.

“What? What did they do to you?” Feinberg prompts, leaning forward. 

“They burned me.” Icarus’s voice is strained. The real Icarus, Couriway, must be trying to break free. “They didn’t stop until… my wings…”

“I’m sorry,” Feinberg says, the sympathy in his tone genuine. “I didn’t know.”

Icarus scoffs. “Fruitberries didn’t tell you?”

Feinberg shakes his head earnestly. “Fruitberries didn’t tell me anything. I was never with him. He lied to you.”

“That’s nonsense. I saw you. You said you don’t heal heroes and stormed off. You left your goggles.” 

Feinberg sucks in a breath. Holds on to it.

Your mask was mostly intact, but I couldn’t find your goggles.

Feinberg curses beneath the breath lodged in his throat. Fruitberries must have taken his goggles before Raddles tracked down the location of the attack Feinberg suffered at the hands of Fruitberries and his gangly vines.

“Didn’t expect me to remember?” Icarus sneers, lifting his hand to point his knife at Feinberg. “You know what? I don’t need you to heal me. I just want you dead.”

Feinberg manages to spring from the bench before the knife makes it to his neck, but Icarus quickly recuperates and elbows Feinberg in the stomach with his opposite arm. 

All the air rushes from Feinberg’s lungs. His wound is mostly healed, but echoes of agony stab him in the gut. His hand flies out to steady himself on the back of the bench, his dinner threatening to extricate itself. 

Icarus aims another stab at Feinberg’s neck, but Feinberg ducks just in time. The next swing nicks his mask, reverberating with the screech of metal on metal. 

Feinberg lets go of the bench, his hand finding his belt instead. He wraps his fingers around the taser strapped to his hip, but he can’t bring himself to draw it. 

Couriway or Icarus, hero or villain, Feinberg can’t hurt his roommate. 

“What’s with the cold feet?” Icarus taunts, something Feinberg has never known him to do. “You afraid now that your victim can defend themselves?”

“I don’t have victims,” Feinberg chokes out. “I heal people. I don’t—“ Feinberg narrowly avoids another slash. “I don’t hurt them.”

“Easy to say after nearly killing my—“ Icarus interrupts himself with a grunt of effort, staggering as though he’d been hit.

Feinberg resists the temptation to approach Icarus. “What? Are you hurt?”

Icarus laughs. It’s a bitter, dry sound that cuts off in his throat. “Forgot I don’t have wings anymore.”

To anyone else, the explanation would make no sense, but Feinberg knows. Feinberg knows that Icarus has two states of being: winged and wingless. He must have tried to swap without realizing…

Feinberg’s mouth dries. Icarus wasn’t bluffing. His wings are gone.

“Let me heal you,” Feinberg pleads, though he isn’t certain he can. He hasn’t tried to heal anyone since he was injured by Fruitberries.

“You can’t,” Icarus spits. “That’s why you refused the first time. You don’t hate heroes. You’re just a fraud.”

Feinberg pants with the effort of staying upright. “Why don’t you let me prove you wrong?”

Icarus hasn’t so much as broken a sweat. “And let you put your hands on me? I know how your power works. Don’t think I’m that gullible. I used to be number three, you know.”

“I know.” Feinberg swallows. “You were my favorite.”

"You have some fucking nerve.” Icarus charges forward again, knife raised, and Feinberg can’t move.

Feinberg sees, rather than feels, the knife sink into his shoulder. He watches Icarus let go as if he hadn’t expected to meet his mark. He watches blood ooze from the new wound.

Then Feinberg feels the pain. It nearly knocks him off his feet, but he’s been through worse. Besides, Icarus didn’t remove the knife. It hurts like a bitch, but he’ll be fine.

Feinberg’s left hand comes up to grasp the knife’s handle, keeping it in place. Despite his confidence in his tolerance, tears spring to his eyes. 

Perhaps it’s the stress getting to him. The shock of locating his lost friend only to find his friend is a little more lost than anticipated.

Icarus stands eerily still in front of Feinberg. “I’ve never killed someone before,” he says by way of explanation.

Feinberg almost laughs. Almost. “And you never will. This won’t kill me.”

Icarus is quiet for a moment. The crickets chirp in his stead. “How are you so sure?”

Feinberg nearly shrugs before thinking better of it. “You didn’t hit any of my internal organs. You missed my heart and my lungs, and you didn’t take the knife out, so I’m not going to bleed to death. Don’t they teach you these things in hero school?”

Icarus takes a tiny step in Feinberg’s direction. “It… sounds like it hurts, though.”

Feinberg nods. “It does.”

Icarus’s fingers twitch, as though he’s contemplating reaching for Feinberg. “Can’t you… Can’t you shut off people’s nerves?”

Feinberg sees no reason to lie. “Yeah. Not my own, though.”

“That’s convenient,” Icarus scoffs. Feinberg wishes he would stop doing that.

“Quite the opposite,” Feinberg remarks. “Every time I get hurt I have to deal with it.”

Icarus gestures to the hand at Feinberg’s side. “Can’t you heal yourself?”

“I, uh…” Feinberg pauses. He could in the past, but he isn’t certain he can now. If he pulls out this knife and tries to heal himself but fails, he may bleed out. If Icarus doesn’t finish the job first. “No, I can’t. Only other people.”

“You filthy liar.” Icarus’s tone turns sharp again. “You can. Fruitberries saw you do it before.”

“I’m not lying,” Feinberg lies, taking a shallow breath as his hand tremors, joggling the knife in his shoulder. “I… I have no reason to lie to you. Fruit does.”

“No reason?” Icarus challenges, taking a larger step toward Feinberg. Feinberg finds that his feet are still glued to the ground. “Wouldn’t it be convenient for you to lie about hating heroes? Or hurting that civilian? Or your involvement with Fruitberries? I was listening when you described cutting F— from one seam of your victim's jacket to the other. When you said you snuck up and held him down so he couldn’t see your face. It matches the victim’s testimony perfectly.”

“Or,” Feinberg argues, irritated. “Fruitberries told that fake exactly what to say because he was the one who cut the poor dude open!”

Icarus takes another step forward. “That seems less likely than you attempting murder and getting sloppy with it.”

Feinberg grits his teeth. He can feel his heartbeat in the handle of the knife lodged in his shoulder. “Fruitberries lying is unlikely? What fucking business would I have killing some guy?”

Icarus shrugs, his shoulders trembling. “Maybe he didn’t pay you enough? Maybe you two struck a deal and you decided to kill him instead of splitting the profits?”

“You’re out of your god damn mind,” Feinberg fails to reign in his anger before his thoughts become words and suddenly Icarus has tackled him to the ground, his head colliding with the packed dirt trail.

He doesn’t have a moment to catch his breath or blink the stars from his vision before Icarus’s hand is on the handle of the knife protruding from his shoulder.

Feinberg manages to lift his head in time to see Icarus’s wrist twist, carving a wider wound into Feinberg’s skin. 

Feinberg can’t keep the groan of pain from slipping past his lips. Icarus grins above him.

Fuck. Icarus is going to kill him. 

Feinberg doesn’t think. With the hand that isn’t pinned beneath Icarus’s body, he reaches for his visor, yanking it from his face. He tosses it into the grass behind him before pulling his mask down. 

“Couri,” he rasps. “Couriway, fuck, it’s me. Feinberg. Stop.”

Icarus’s hand freezes. He lets go of the knife, his fingers grasping at air as he lifts his goggles with his opposite hand. 

“Fein?” He whispers, his eyes flickering from Feinberg’s face to the wound in his shoulder, then back. “I… I’m so sorry, I didn’t…”

Feinberg lets out a tense breath. “I told you. You won’t kill me.”

Icarus stands, staggering into the bench he’d tackled Feinberg over. He presses a hand to his mouth, the other clutching at the fabric of his jacket. 

Feinberg sits up, gingerly touching the back of his head. He winces as his head throbs beneath his fingertips. “Well. You might, if I don’t get that checked out.”

“I-I don’t understand,” Icarus kneels, his hands moving to hover anxiously over Feinberg, unsure of touching him. “Did someone put you up to this?”

“To what?” Feinberg squints, attempting to clear his blurry vision. It doesn’t work.

“To… pretend to be Fine. Was it Nerdi? Or Fulham?”

Feinberg laughs. It comes out as more of a choked groan. “The British guy or the dude who sounds like he’s been outside a total of three times in his life?”

“You know them? So it was them? But why…”

Feinberg considers going along with the lie, but he quickly decides against it. Now that he’s revealed his identity to Couriway, he won’t lie to his roommate any longer. 

Feinberg rolls his eyes, regretting it immediately as his nerves pinch at his temples. “No, it wasn’t them, you brick. They called me looking for you after you peaced out without saying anything.” 

Feinberg takes a steadying breath. “I’m the real Fine. The one you met was an imposter.”

Icarus shakes his head so vigorously that Feinberg’s headache worsens in response. “I-I don’t believe you. Did Fruitberries force you to do this? Did he threaten you? Hurt you?”

Feinberg frowns, ignoring the rapidly growing patch of damp warmth soaking into his shirt. “Why don’t you believe I’m the real deal?”

Icarus’s eyes rake from Feinberg’s eyes down to his feet, then back. “You— you can’t be. You’d… you would have healed yourself instead of being in pain for weeks.”

“Told you I can’t numb my own nerves, idiot,” Feinberg says, leaning forward and tucking his legs under him to sit on his knees. “Show me your injury. Let me prove it to you.”

Icarus doesn’t move. “Prove it to me how?”

“By healing you. Duh.” Feinberg gestures to Icarus’s back. “Unless you were lying about the wings thing.”

“No, I wasn’t…” Icarus’s voice catches. “Can you heal that kind of thing?”

Feinberg chews his lip. He promised himself he wouldn’t lie. “I’ve never tried, but I don’t see why not.”

“I can’t ask that of you. Not after I hurt you.”

Feinberg narrows his eyes. “How else will I prove that I’m the real Fine?”

“You’re not. You can’t be.” Icarus sounds like a broken record. 

“Just take your damn jacket off,” Feinberg bites, annoyed. “Let me make up for the mistakes the other me made.”

“It’s—“ Icarus winces. “It’s bad. I can’t… I can’t let you see.”

Feinberg's heart thumps in his chest, just beneath the oozing knife wound lodged between his ribs and clavicle. 

Couriway still doesn’t believe him.

The blood loss is getting to Feinberg's head. His thoughts and memories blend together as he searches for irrefutable evidence that he’s the one and only Fine.

Think, Feinberg, think.

“I lied to you,” Feinberg sputters out.

Icarus looks at Feinberg like Couriway looks at Feinberg, all shiny eyes and wet lashes before glancing away.

“You know that night I locked myself out? I didn’t. I had the key the whole time. I… I was out meeting with some dude called Poundcake and I used too much of my power, or something, and I passed out. You found me. Or, Icarus found me, and I wanted to tell you, I really did, Couri.” Feinberg’s heart aches worse than the stab wound between his fingers. “But I was afraid. I was afraid to tell you that I knew you were Icarus from the first week I moved in, because I— I like you. You were so damn nice to me and I didn’t— I couldn’t ruin that.”

Icarus’s—no, Couriway’s—eyes meet his own. “Feinberg. Breathe.”

Feinberg lets out the wisp of breath he’d been clinging to, replacing it with a gulp of iron-tinged night air.

Couriway gently lifts Feinberg’s blood-soaked hand from the knife sticking out of his chest. “You’re hurt. We can talk about this later.”

“I’m fine,” Feinberg spits the word. “Don’t do this, Couri.”

Couriway blinks, confused. “Do what?”

“Your stupid professional hero shtick.” Feinberg swats Couriway’s hand away as he reaches for Feinberg. “You are not compartmentalizing this. You are going to listen to me and let me fucking heal you.”

“You are in no condition to heal me, you absolute doofus,” Couriway fires back. “I’m not letting you nonchalance your way out of this like last time.”

“Last time?” Feinberg barks in indignation. “Last time I was dying.”

Couriway visibly flinches like Feinberg’s glare broke his skin. 

“This time I’m not even bleeding anymore.” Feinberg gestures to the drying patch of blood on his jacket. “You, on the other hand, are missing two whole limbs.”

“I’m not letting you—“

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Feinberg growls. He places two hands on the handle of the knife in his shoulder and yanks it free with barely a pained grunt. 

Couriway watches in horror as Feinberg tosses the bloody knife in the grass and removes his left glove, shrugging off his jacket. 

With his right hand, Feinberg grips the collar of his shirt and peels it away from his skin, giving him access to the gnarly wound beneath his collarbone. 

“You had to twist the knife, didn’t you?” Feinberg mutters, craning his neck to get a good look at what he’s working with. From what Feinberg can feel, the wound is small, but deep. 

Feinberg takes a shuddering breath. He presses his left palm to his heart, underneath the gash. His fingers tingle with the remnants of his power. He can only hope it’s still in there somewhere.

Squinting from the sweat dripping into his eyes, Feinberg watches with no small amount of relief as his power flows from his fingertips into his chest.

Feinberg’s muscles burn as the severed tendons and nerves knit themselves back together. He holds his breath as platelets collect around the edges of the wound and stretch across it. Layers of skin reach for each other from either side of the gash, joining in the middle and leaving behind a small pink scar.

Feinberg lets go, taking in a sharp breath. The wound still aches beneath his skin, but it won’t worry Couriway anymore. 

“I forgot how much this shit hurts when your nerves are still online,” Feinberg grumbles more to himself than Couriway.

Couriway may have heard Feinberg, but he shows no indication as he stares at Feinberg, slack-jawed.

Subduing a wince, Feinberg cracks his best attempt at a grin. “Do you believe me now?”

“I—yeah,” Couriway stammers, his hands twitching in his lap as though he’s restraining himself from moving them. “Fine. Feinberg. I should have known.”

Feinberg braves a small shrug. It doesn’t hurt as much as before. “Sometimes the best place to hide is in plain sight.”

“So, the message you sent to Fruitberries?” Couriway speaks slowly, cautiously. “That was…”

“A lie,” Feinberg confirms. “I was looking for you. I figured he might know something. I didn’t think that you…” Feinberg pauses, glancing at the discarded knife next to his knee. “Joined him.”

Couriway’s jaw tenses. 

Feinberg avoids Couriway’s eyes. “Care to tell me the full truth? Or do you not trust me?”

“Of course I trust you, Fein.” Couriway reaches forward, placing a hand on Feinberg’s knee. “You’re one of the only people I think I can trust right now. Fruitberries had me convinced… God, I was so fucking stupid.”

Feinberg shakes his head. “No. That’s his modus operandi. He controls people with the power of what they fear most. I don’t know what that was for you, but I know you don’t depart from your principles for nothing.”

“He threatened you,” Couriway blurts, squeezing his eyes shut. His grip on Feinberg’s knee tightens. 

Feinberg blinks. “Me? Or Fine?”

“You. A-as far as I know, he didn’t know you and Fine, the healer, were the same person, either.”

“Few people do,” Feinberg whispers to fill the stretching silence. “What do you mean, he threatened me?”

Couriway’s eyes crack open. “He said… he knew where you lived. And he knew the person who tried to kill you. He said if I didn’t come with him, he’d let your attacker finish the job.”

“It was Fruitberries who attacked me,” Feinberg admits. “You were right. I met with him because he was willing to pay me a lot, and I— I was an idiot. It was an ambush. He wanted me to join him, obviously, and when I refused, he took a swing at me. Multiple of them, actually.”

Feinberg watches the mounting panic burn in Couriway’s eyes. “He was definitely bluffing about knowing where I live. If he did, he would have kidnapped me instead of you. I’m much easier to win against in a fight.” Feinberg laughs to lighten the mood, but it comes out forced. “I haven’t even seen the guy or his cronies since the night he painted my guts across a dumpster.”

Couriway swallows. It looks like it hurts. “The people who burned my wings off, they were put up to it by Fruitberries. He must have killed them to cover up his tracks.”

Feinberg’s stomach flips. “You believed him when he said they weren’t part of his gang?”

“Not entirely,” Couriway rasps. “But I was desperate. To keep you safe. To make the pain go away. I knew what Fine—you,” Couriway corrects, “could do, so I thought it was the path of least resistance.”

Feinberg reaches for his bag, stowed under the bench. “Does it still hurt?”

Couriway looks taken aback. “You mean my wings?”

Feinberg unhooks his water bottle from the strap of his bag and hands it to Couriway. “Yeah.”

Couriway takes the bottle from Feinberg with trembling hands, his mouth opening and shutting as though he can’t find the right words. “How did you know I can—“

Couriway cuts himself off as Feinberg lifts an eyebrow. “Right. You know everything about me.”

“Clearly, I didn’t.” Even as the words leave Feinberg’s mouth, he isn’t certain what they mean. “I have a literal sixth sense for how people feel. Physically. Emotions, I’m pretty dogshit at, but you know that.”

Couriway stares at Feinberg for a long time as he takes a swig from Feinberg’s water bottle. “I think you’re better than you give yourself credit for.”

“So?” Feinberg eagerly changes the subject. “Do your wings still hurt?”

Couriway chews his lip before offering a subtle nod.

Feinberg gestures to Couriway’s back. “Can I try?”

Couriway shrugs off his jacket in silent acceptance. He throws it over the back of the park bench and gathers his shirt up to his shoulders. 

Feinberg scoots over, situating himself behind Couriway. His back is covered in splotches of reddish-purple, the skin rough to the touch. 

“A healer that works for Fruitberries tried to help, I think.” Couriway’s voice is small. “They couldn’t do much. I think that was the point.”

Feinberg hums. “Probably. These look like third degree burn scars to me.”

“Feinberg?” Couriway asks, barely above a whisper. 

Feinberg doesn’t take his eyes off of Couriway’s scars, assessing. “Yeah? Did you change your mind?”

“Do you really think you can bring my wings back?”

“I’m not sure,” Feinberg answers. “I’ve never tried to regrow limbs before, but the fact that you can still feel pain in them is a good sign.”

“I won’t get my hopes up,” Couriway laughs, but it’s humorless, lacking Couriway’s hallmark spiritedness.

“Okay, I’m going to give it a shot. Ready?” Feinberg places his left hand on Couriway’s shoulder. His power crackles in his fingertips eagerly. 

Couriway’s shoulders rise and fall as he takes a deep breath, exhaling tensely. “Okay.”

Throwing caution to the wind, Feinberg gathers every ounce of energy he can spare and funnels it to his hand. Blood collects in his fingertips, staining them bright red. 

Holding his breath, Feinberg searches for remnants of Couriway’s wings—muscle, bone, anything will do—and releases his power all at once, willing it to do what he needs it to do.

The first sign that Feinberg’s power is working comes in the form of a fresh, pink sheet of skin layering itself over top of Couriway’s discolored scars. The second sign is a sharp spike of pain rocketing up Feinberg’s arm, starting in his fingertips and racing through his veins like fast-acting poison. 

Feinberg bites his tongue hard enough to bleed, watching his forearm tremble beneath the sheer volume of power coursing through it. 

Feinberg’s eyes widen as something begins to poke out from beneath Couriway’s skin. It breaks through the fresh skin like a chick emerging from its shell, but there’s no blood.

The protrusion is an off-white, chalky block of solid bone. It reaches for the moon, unfurling up, up, up until it arches above Couriway’s back like a giant claw, skinny and pointed at the end. A second humerus emerges, followed by a radius, ulna, everything the first wing has. 

Meanwhile, the acid in Feinberg’s bloodstream ventures to his heart, wrapping suffocating tendrils around his arteries. He can feel his heartbeat stutter, struggling to keep up with the strain on his body. 

Couriway doesn’t move. Good. He isn’t in any pain, then.

Feinberg doesn’t want to find out what happens if their connection is severed in the middle of… whatever this is. 

Blinking static from his vision, Feinberg continues his work. Strands of coiled muscle gather around the bones, blanketed by skin that creates the appearance of weirdly-colored bat wings.

Feinberg’s throat closes up. He isn’t certain that oxygen is making it to his brain anymore, but he refuses to give up when he’s this close to retribution for his lies and deception. 

Canary-yellow feathers pop up in patches along the rivets in Couriway’s new wings, sprouting like sunflowers in a grassy meadow. 

Fuck, Feinberg thinks deliriously. I can’t keep this up. My heart won’t hold out much longer.

Would Couriway ever forgive Feinberg if he gave his life for Icarus’s?

Feinberg’s entire body is a live wire, sparking with agony. The last of the feathers settle into place, and Feinberg lets out a breath, preparing to let go.

The call of oblivion has other plans. It steals the last threads of consciousness from Feinberg without mercy.

Feinberg wakes to the dizzying sensation of someone jostling his shoulders. It’s not harsh; if anything the gentle rocking makes Feinberg want to go back to sleep, but someone’s panic-stricken voice wipes that idea from Feinberg’s mind.

“Fein! Feinberg, please. Wake up. I’m sorry for everything, just please wake up. Please. Don’t die on me.”

Ugh. Couriway is so damn dramatic.

Feinberg’s whole body aches like he’d been run over by a truck. He groans to let Couriway know he’s alive, blinking his eyes open with more effort than he’s comfortable admitting to.

It’s yellow. The color is so bright Feinberg finds himself squinting to keep the light out. He finds Couriway’s concerned face, Feinberg’s heart backflipping in his ribcage when tears shine at the corners of Couriway’s eyes.

“What happened? How long was I out for?” Feinberg mumbles, lifting his head. 

As Feinberg’s vision clears, he realizes the curtain of yellow surrounding him and Couriway is made of feathers. Feinberg makes a small noise of confusion before the events from earlier come rushing back with all the force of a tsunami.

The fire in his fingertips. The blood boiling in his veins. Icarus’s wings. 

Before Couriway can answer, Feinberg reaches out, running the heel of his palm along Couriway’s feathers. “Holy shit.” The syllables slur together, his tongue forgetting how to form words. “I did it.”

“Five minutes.” Couriway finds his voice. “But it was the scariest five minutes of my life. I couldn’t feel your pulse. I thought I'd lost you.”

“I told you I’m not easy to kill,” Feinberg teases, though it comes out pained. 

“Feinberg, be serious,” Couriway chides, but his tone lacks bite. “You—“

“Could have died, yeah,” Feinberg finishes. “That ship has sailed, brother. I should have died, like, three or four times by now.”

“Don’t say that!” Couriway smacks Feinberg’s shoulder. Phantom pain from his knife wound complains in response. 

Feinberg rolls his eyes. “Instead of yelling at me, how about a thank you?”

“Thank you?” Couriway asks, before looking up, then to his side, then to his other side, wide eyes taking in his new wings. “Holy fucking smokes. What—how?”

Couriway’s eyes flit back to Feinberg’s half-lidded ones. “You—Feinberg, my wings have never been this freaking huge before. It’s the middle of the night.”

“Sorry,” Feinberg mutters. “I don’t know how to control it very well. I just gave it everything I had.”

“Sorry?” Couriway sputters incredulously. “You’re apologizing for this fucking miracle of nature? If you can do this shit, people should be building temples in your honor.”

“You,” Feinberg lilts tiredly. “Are an idiot.”

“Pot, kettle,” Couriway dismisses. “You’re incredible. You should change your name to Epic Man or something. You are so much better than Fine.”

Feinberg smirks. “Who came up with your hero name? It clearly wasn’t you.”

“My hero—“ Couriway stops abruptly. “Oh my god, I can fly again. I can go back to being Icarus. Feinberg, I could fucking kiss you right now.”

“Do not do that,” Feinberg nearly yelps, squirming away from Couriway and putting up his hands defensively. “I will put those bigass wings back where they came from.”

Couriway giggles. “You can do that?”

Feinberg crosses his arms over his chest. “You want me to try?”

Couriway tilts his head, pretending to consider. “Maybe later. You need to rest right now.”

Feinberg ponders the idea of resting. He isn’t sure he can after everything that happened. The cunning gleam in Icarus’s eyes—one identical to Fruitberries—is something Feinberg will never be able to forget. 

Feinberg can still feel the knife in his chest, twisting like the smirk on the Winged Hero’s lips. Icarus, kind, selfless, Icarus, who once searched for Fine on a mission to treat Feinberg’s wounds, intent on something as wicked as murder.

Over a lie spun by Fruitberries’s hands. 

Over Feinberg’s negligence. He’d let Couriway disappear right under his nose. He’d let his roommate get kidnapped and psychologically tortured for god knows how long. 

Icarus had still agreed. It was Icarus’s decision to meet Fine and drag him down into Fruitberries’s clutches with him, or worse—not that death would be much worse, in Feinberg’s opinion. 

Behind the masks and goggles and secret identities, Couriway tried to kill Feinberg. He was grinning, almost giddy, while dragging a jagged knife closer and closer to Feinberg’s heart. 

Feinberg knows it was because Couriway was convinced he was getting revenge on Feinberg’s attacker. 

It doesn’t ease the nausea in Feinberg’s stomach.

“I was so sure I was dying.” Feinberg stares at his hands in his lap, locking his fingers together. 

“You mean just now?”

Feinberg shuts his eyes, nodding. “When Fruitberries attacked me. When I was healing you. When you stabbed me.”

Couriway’s breathing halts. Feinberg squeezes his eyelids tighter together.

“I… don’t know what came over me.” The awe in Couriway’s voice has vanished, replaced by emptiness. 

“The scariest part is that I wasn’t scared,” Feinberg admits, the words like sandpaper on his tongue. “Not when I was bleeding to death in some dark alley, or when I gave you too much of my power.”

“But when I stabbed you?” Couriway’s voice ghosts past Feinberg’s ears. He almost doesn’t hear it.

“When you stabbed me,” Feinberg repeats, his chest throbbing in response. “I was afraid. Not of dying, but of you finding out who I was only after you killed me. It scared me so bad, I… I had no choice.”

“Even if I did die,” Feinberg continues without looking up. “I wanted you to know it was me. If I had to, I wanted to be able to forgive you.”

“Fein…” Couriway’s voice breaks halfway through Feinberg’s name. Feinberg can tell by Couriway’s labored breathing that he’s barely holding it together. “Why would you forgive me?”

Feinberg places his hand over his heart, his fingers straddling the tiny scar left by Couriway’s knife. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“I was going to kill you.” Couriway goes still. His feathers rustle around Feinberg. 

Sensing something is amiss, Feinberg lowers his voice. “What is it?”

Couriway leans forward, whispering so only Feinberg can hear. “Someone’s

coming.”

Someone’s here? At the campsite? At this time of day?

“It must be Fruitberries,” Feinberg breathes. “Put your wings away. Quickly.”

“Can’t we—“

“Run? There’s no time,” Feinberg rushes out, pulling his gloves back on. He shrugs his jacket over his shoulders. “Trust me, Couri. You can do that, right?” 

Couriway obeys, his wings folding over themselves and flattening against his back. His feathers shrink until his wings are nowhere to be seen. 

Feinberg stands, yanking up his mask and retrieving his visor from the grass. He turns, snatching Icarus’s coat from the bench and handing it to Couriway. He reaches down, picking up Icarus’s bloodied knife before handing that to Couriway, too. “I need you to fight with me. Like earlier.”

Couriway’s eyes flicker with trepidation before they disappear behind Icarus’s goggles. “Fein, I can’t. Not after—“

Feinberg slides his visor over his eyes. “Or argue with me, or something. I need you to pretend you’re still under Fruitberries’s control. Just follow my lead, okay? I know this guy.”

Icarus visibly flinches before nodding. 

Feinberg easily slips back into his alter ego’s persona, hoping Couriway doesn’t have an issue doing the same.

Maybe it would help if Feinberg acted more like the villain Icarus thought he was. It’s worth a shot.

“You forget I can heal myself, hero,” Feinberg jeers, leaning against the bench for good measure. “You really think a flightless bird like you can take me down with a kitchen knife?”

“I’m not trying to take you down,” Icarus retorts, if a little strained. “I’m just trying to tire you out so you’re easier for the boss to snatch.”

Feinberg starts. Was that the original plan?

The surprise in Feinberg’s voice is genuine. “What?”

Icarus laughs, but it’s some strange amalgamation of the cruel cackling from earlier and Couriway’s light, airy chuckle. “Did you really think this would go any different? You’re dumber than I thought, Fine.”

The half-healed injury beneath Feinberg’s collarbone aches at Icarus’s tone. Feinberg takes a steadying breath.

He’s just pretending.

Right?

“Call me an optimist.” Feinberg shrugs, but the trembling of his words betrays him.

“Well, well,” calls a gut-wrenchingly familiar voice. “What a reunion you guys had, am I right?”

“Don’t act like we’re friends,” Feinberg spits, covering for Icarus as he stands there, frozen to his spot in the grass. “Last time I saw you, you nearly killed me.”

“I’ve no idea what you mean.” Fruitberries appears behind the trail light, never stepping into the small spotlight. He remains a shadowed silhouette in the dead of night. “Icarus, do you know what this lunatic is prattling on about?”

Thankfully, Icarus snaps out of whatever trance he was in. He shakes his head slowly, a low chuckle rumbling in his throat. “No, sir, I do not.”

Feinberg’s heart rate climbs as he glances between Icarus and Fruitberries. If they were both against him, Feinberg would be screwed. 

“Icarus, that was me,” Feinberg pleads, allowing some of his fear to seep into his tone. “Don’t you remember? That’s where the real madman in this equation got my other pair of goggles.”

Icarus hums, tilting his head. “What a convenient lie.”

Fruitberries’s hallmark giggle breaks the air clean in two. Feinberg nearly jumps out of his skin. 

The supervillain’s footsteps recede in Icarus’s direction. “Don’t tell me you thought Icarus would be on your side after what you did to him.”

“I didn’t do shit to him, you filthy sadist,” Feinberg snarls with a little more anger than he wanted. “The only reason I have ever put my hands on someone is to heal them. You know that. This is some convoluted scheme you’re running. Are you sure you want to bet all your chips on such a shit hand?”

Please, Feinberg pleads to thin air.

Fruitberries gives a noncommittal shrug. “You’ll have to be more specific about which of my schemes I’m supposedly betting on.”

Icarus stiffens next to Fruitberries. He must have caught on to Feinberg’s plan.

“The one where you brainwash the third best hero in the country to do your dirty work. It’s quite arrogant of you to let him free from his cage all on his own.” Feinberg takes a cautious step in Fruitberries’s direction. If things go south, the supervillain will target Icarus first. “You realize he has everyone in the city looking for him, don’t you? Are you willing to wager against everyone in the city?”

“I did no such brainwashing,” Fruitberries replies easily. “He came with me of his own accord.”

Feinberg takes another step. “Was that before or after your hired help burned his wings off?”

“You mean your hired help,” Icarus speaks up, his voice dark as the forest backdrop. “No one would willingly work with scum like you. Isn’t that right, boss?”

Fruitberries nods.

The wound in Feinberg’s chest flares as if it had been torn open. Feinberg grits his teeth. 

“I don’t need to hire help when the whole city is trying to track your pet hero down.” Feinberg turns to Fruitberries. “Really puts the ‘all’ in all or nothing, huh?”

“I didn’t make a bet with all of them.” Fruitberries waves a gloved hand. “I made a bet with you, the nothing.”

Not good enough.

Feinberg takes another step. He’s almost within arms reach of both the hero and the supervillain. “I’m nothing to you? Even though you went through all the trouble capturing Icarus just to get to me?”

Fruitberries regards Feinberg with a calculating glare. “I told you. I didn’t capture anyone. He came with me of his own accord, just like you will.”

“You wish,” Feinberg mutters. “I told you, once upon a time, that you’d have to kill me first.”

“I don’t need to kill you.” Fruitberries’s eyes crinkle at the edges, betraying his crooked grin beneath his mask. “I don’t even need to touch you.”

In a blur of motion, thick vines appear from behind Fruitberries, snatching Icarus by the neck, barbs pricking his skin. Icarus lets out a strained cry.

“Come with me and I’ll release him.” Fruitberries’s wicked grin is evident in his  giddy tone. “While you deliberate, poor Icarus will be receiving a steady dose of poison from yours truly. The decision is yours, Fine.” 

Fuck. 

“I hope you know what you’re doing.” Feinberg wills his voice to stay steady as he watches Icarus struggle beneath Fruitberries’s toxins. “You really are wagering against the entire city, if not the entire country, Fruitberries.”

Fruitberries’s hold on Icarus tightens. 

Feinberg can’t see his eyes, but he can sense the terror in Icarus’s body language. 

“I suppose I am,” Fruitberries says, finally sealing his fate.

Seconds later, Fruitberries stills. His breathing halts, his chest tensing. The vines around Icarus’s neck loosen. 

It’s enough. With a low grunt, Icarus raises his knife and severs the vine constricting his throat. He wriggles free from Fruitberries’s grasp, coughing and sputtering. 

Fruitberries staggers backward, his eyes glazed. His vines go limp, dangling at his sides like the tendrils of a weeping willow.

Feinberg rushes forward, catching Icarus by the arm as the hero stumbles, disoriented.

“Get out of here.” Feinberg lifts his visor to get a better look at Icarus’s injuries. As expected, a dimpled rash dotted with pinpricks coils around Icarus’s neck.

“Not without…” Icarus’s speech is slurred, evidence of the poison taking hold. “Not without you.”

“I’ll be fine,” Feinberg assures the trembling hero, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Fruitberries is still subdued. “Ace can’t hold him for long. You need to get to a hospital.”

“Not without you,” Icarus repeats, louder. His eyes are glassy, unfocused on somewhere beyond Feinberg.

“Couri.” Feinberg pulls down his mask, hoping his voice will snap Couriway out of it. “Get somewhere safe. Now.”

“I’m not leaving you.” For a moment, Couriway’s gaze is sharp as his tone. 

It doesn’t last. His pupils cloud over, eyelids fluttering. His balance topples, and Feinberg reaches out to steady him, eventually helping Couriway to a sitting position in the grass.

Couriway shudders, his arms trembling beneath him as he leans back on his elbows. Even in the low light, Couriway’s complexion is noticeably lacking in color. 

The poison wastes no time. It must be in Couriway’s bloodstream already.

Feinberg shifts from his spot next to Couriway, gently pulling Couriway forward to rest his weight on Feinberg’s shoulder.

“Fein,” Couriway rasps. Feinberg almost misses it under the blood rushing in his ears. “I’m sorry for what I said.”

“Save the deathbed confessions for when you’re actually dying,” Feinberg bites, his composure snapping like a bowstring. “Mortality rates for poison aren’t what they used to be.”

“How cute,” a mocking voice calls from behind Feinberg. It lacks the bravado from earlier, the slightest tremble rumbling underneath. “You heroes and your altruism disgust me.”

Feinberg knew Fruitberries wouldn’t go down without a fight. He tries to free himself from Couriway’s grasp, but Couriway, determined, stubborn Couriway, clings to Feinberg’s jacket for dear life.

“I’m not a hero,” Feinberg replies, wracking his brain for a way to buy some time. “I’m a healer. Do you expect me to stand by and watch people die?”

“Still altruistic,” Fruitberries lilts, his footsteps drawing closer. “Still disgusting.”

“Pot, meet kettle,” Feinberg mutters, which draws the weakest, breathy laugh from the man in his arms. 

“Don’t you realize you’re only doubling the casualties, shielding him like that?” Fruitberries is nearly standing over Feinberg now, his shadow blotting out the last of the moonlight. “If you let him go, I’ll spare your life.”

Feinberg stifles a bitter laugh into an affronted huff. “No the fuck you will not.” 

In the following few seconds, several things happen at once. 

First, or at least Feinberg thinks it happens first, the shadows of Fruitberries’s vines appear behind his silhouette. In the next instant, the shadows grow. They’re getting closer. 

Feinberg braces himself. 

There’s no impact. In its place is the abrupt fluttering of feathers, yellow streaking across Feinberg’s vision. Like an umbrella blown open in the wind, Couriway’s wings unfurl. His left wing coils protectively around Feinberg, while his right wraps around his own body.

Feinberg tries to shout at Couriway, but it’s muted. He can’t think straight. The words are scrambled on his tongue.

“Couri,” Feinberg breathes, and to the hero’s credit, he understands the words Feinberg doesn’t say.

The wing pressed against Feinberg’s back slackens, while the other folds against Couriway’s shoulderblades. Gingerly, Couriway withdraws his extended wing and his feathers disappear, as if they’d never existed in the first place. 

Feinberg looks up, then around, bewildered at the uninjured state of Couriway’s wings, when his unspoken question answers itself. 

A glimmering dome of translucent magenta surrounds Feinberg.

It must be soundproof, too, because Feinberg can see two strangers—no, not quite—and Raddles shouting at each other, but he can’t hear a thing. 

The strangers, Fulham and Nerdi, are standing, while Raddles is crouched next to an incapacitated Fruitberries.

In the field, Feinberg supposes he should refer to Icarus’s colleagues by their codenames, Ace and Aegis.

Nah, that’s too confusing.

Nerdi glances at Feinberg, then double takes, his eyes widening. He cuts himself off mid-sentence and races toward Feinberg. 

The magenta force-field disappears and the chorus of the world returns. 

It's immediately interrupted by Nerdi’s voice. “Feinberg? You’re Fine? Why didn’t you tell us?”

Feinberg squints at Nerdi. “I did.”

“What? No, you didn’t! That sounds like something I would remember.”

“My name?” Feinberg asks. Then, “oh.”

Feinberg pulls Fine’s visor from his head, fidgeting with the buttons on the sides as he places it in his lap. “I didn’t want to tell anyone, but then Couri tried to kill me because he thought I attacked myself, so I had no choice.”

Now it’s Nerdi’s turn to stare at Feinberg, dumbstruck. “Okay. Okay, back up. Icarus tried to kill you?”

Feinberg nods. “Fruitberries kidnapped him and convinced him that my alter ego, Fine, attacked me the night Couri saved me. So then Couri tried to kill me… for almost killing myself, which I didn’t do. Fruitberries did that.”

Nerdi’s jaw swings open. “So it was Fruitberries that attacked you! You lied to me!”

Feinberg shrugs, a sheepish grin stretching across his lips. “I didn’t lie to you. I lied to Couri.”

“Same difference.” Nerdi crouches next to Feinberg, peeking over Feinberg’s shoulder to look at Couriway. “Whatever, now's not the time. How is he?”

“Um,” Feinberg replies, pulling his glove from his left hand. He rests his palm against Couriway’s neck, closing his eyes.

“Unconcious. Alive, but his pulse is weak.” Feinberg opens his eyes. “It’s steady, but it’s barely there.”

Nerdi sucks in a breath through his teeth. “Is he injured? I don’t see any blood.”

“No,” Feinberg answers, gesturing to Couriway’s neck with his free hand. “Poisoned.”

“Fuck,” Nerdi swears, his voice crackling. Things must be bad if the professional hero is losing his cool. 

“What?” Feinberg’s hand navigates from Couriway’s neck to the back of his head, reflexively carding his fingers through Couriway’s hair. “Is it that bad?”

Nerdi confirms Feinberg’s hypothesis in one breath. “No one has survived Fruitberries’s poison.”

There goes Feinberg’s heart rate for the eleventy-billionth time tonight. “No one?”

“Fruitberries isolates his victims. The poison incapacitates people in seconds. By the time they’re found…” Nerdi trails off.

Feinberg swallows the dread in the back of his throat. “You’re saying he has a chance?”

“I don’t know,” Nerdi admits, pressing a hand to his forehead. “Medical examiners say the poison is fast. People have died in minutes.”

“Minutes?” Feinberg’s voice shatters. The latter half of the word is unintelligible.

“Sometimes longer,” Nerdi continues hastily. “I heard you can work miracles. Can you help him?”

Feinberg lifts his head, meeting Nerdi’s fearful gaze. “I—I’m a healer. I can’t neutralize poison.”

“There has to be something you can do,” Nerdi’s cadence is steady, but desperate. “Please, Feinberg.”

Feinberg takes Couriway’s wrist in his left hand. Couriway’s pulse is thready beneath Feinberg’s fingertips. “I—maybe I can keep his heart beating long enough to get to a hospital. I don’t know.”

Nerdi’s eyes are sharp, focused. “How long?”

Feinberg catches his cheek between his teeth. “Ten minutes. Give or take. Any longer than that and my power, I think it gets too unstable.”

Nerdi curses. “That’s not enough time.”

“I saw a visitor center on the way here,” Raddles says, placing a hand on Nerdi’s shoulder. When did she get here? “It had a first aid station. It may stock antidotes for local poisons.”

Feinberg stands, retrieving his bag and stuffing his visor in it before slinging it over his shoulder. “Fruitberries’s poison isn’t like other plant-based poisons, but it’s our best option.”

“Give him to me,” Raddles says, holding out her arms. “I’ll lead the way. Fine, you focus on saving your strength for when Icarus needs it.”

Nerdi looks apprehensive, but he nods grimly, presumably coming to terms with the gravity of the situation. “Good luck. I’ll help Ace with Fruitberries. Backup should be here with EMS within half an hour.”

Raddles lifts Couriway into her arms and takes off running, Feinberg at her heels. “I’m praying they don’t obey traffic laws.”

If Feinberg weren’t out of breath, he would laugh. “This is the life or death of Icarus we’re talking about. They’ll stop at nothing—red lights included.”

“I hope you’re right,” Raddles pants. “I’m about to kick this shit into high gear. You catch up when you can. Remember, Fine, save your strength.”

Feinberg watches, awestruck, as Raddles becomes a blur of violet bounding down the trail in the direction of a small cabin in the distance.

A small part of Feinberg seizes with dread at being unable to see Couriway’s chest rise and fall, but he steels himself, urging his legs to move faster.

Feinberg catches up with Raddles moments later. Before Feinberg can take another breath, Raddles turns and dumps Couriway into Feinberg’s arms. 

“Hold him. I need to get this door open.” Raddles turns back to the door in question. It looks solid, like metal or heavy stone. 

Feinberg scrambles to support Couriway’s weight and his own, the air in his lungs never enough. “You can pick locks?”

“Yes,” Raddles says, before lifting her leg and kicking the handle of the door with so much force it snaps off.  

The lock slides open.

Raddles pushes the door open, holding it with one foot, allowing Feinberg to enter first. “But this is faster.”

“I agree,” Feinberg sputters, stepping inside. 

The room is small and clearly seldom used. There’s a row of counters in the back with an industrial-looking sink built in. There isn’t much else in the room save for cabinets lining the walls and a thin cot that sits in the corner.

Feinberg kneels next to the cot, gently setting Couriway down while Raddles yanks the chain of the overhead light, which hums to life after a few attempts. 

Couriway slumps over like a sack of potatoes, unable to keep himself upright, so Raddles and Feinberg help him to lie on his back. 

Raddles crosses the room and begins to rifle through the cabinets. “Fine, how’s his pulse?”

“It’s there,” Feinberg confirms breathily. “It’s gotten fainter.”

Raddles glances over her shoulder, meeting Feinberg’s eyes. “How good are you at identifying medication?”

Feinberg stands, brushing off his pants. “I’m the best you’ve got.”

“You want antivenom, antitoxins, anything that neutralizes chemical reactions,” Feinberg tells her, throwing the unopened cabinets open.

“Can’t that cause, uh, weird interactions?”

Feinberg fixes Raddles with a level stare. “He’s dead either way.”

Raddles nods, swallowing. “Got it.”

A low groan catches Feinberg’s attention. In an instant, he’s by Couriway’s side.

Couriway’s eyes are cracked open, hazy brown irises peeking from beneath damp lashes. He looks at Feinberg, but likely doesn’t see him. Sweat beads on his forehead, his complexion ghostly pale. His breathing is wet and labored.

The poison has made it to his lungs.

“Fuck,” Feinberg curses. “You’re okay. I promise you’re okay. We—we’re going to get you some medicine, okay?”

A pained gasp escapes Couriway’s lips. His brow knits together. “Hurts…”

“I know,” Feinberg whispers. “I know. Let me help you.”

Feinberg rests his left palm on Couriway’s forehead, sucking in a breath through his teeth at how warm Couriway’s skin has gotten. 

As Feinberg channels his power to his fingertips, his chest throbs. He ignores it, closing his eyes. He isn’t sure where Couriway is hurting, but his guess is everywhere. 

Feinberg’s best bet is to switch off Couriway’s pain receptors altogether, but that’s dangerous. Couriway could bite off his own tongue or break a bone and be none the wiser.

Feinberg sighs. It comes out as a choked sob that he hopes Raddles doesn’t hear. When Couriway shivers beneath Feinberg’s touch, Feinberg can’t justify hesitating anymore. 

He instructs his power to find every last nociceptor and disable them. 

In the next moment, Feinberg’s fingertips go numb. Beneath the numbness, Feinberg can feel fiery embers slowly engulfing his hand, travelling up to his wrist. 

Luckily, the pain doesn’t advance any further. 

Couriway’s features smooth over. The tension dissolves from his body and he relaxes against the cot.

In every sense except physically, Feinberg’s hand is on fire. It burns so acutely that he can hardly focus on the words leaving his mouth.

“I’ve blocked off his pain receptors to ease the strain on his heart.” Feinberg takes a shallow breath. “Have you found anything?”

“I think so.” Raddles turns to look at Feinberg. He must look similarly to how he feels, because Raddles lets out a small yelp.

“Are you okay?” Raddles asks, setting the medicine bottles on the counter and approaching Feinberg, her tail lashing behind her. 

“Yeah,” Feinberg answers. He promised he wouldn’t lie to Couriway, but not anyone else. “I need you to crush those pills into a powder and mix them with water. Quickly. I don’t know how much longer he can hold on.”

I don’t know how much longer I can hold on.

Raddles’s tail thumps against the floor. “I’m no good at that kind of thing, can’t you do it?”

Feinberg shakes his head, his teeth clenched. “I can’t lift my hand or he’ll go back to being in pain. If that happens, I don’t think his heart could withstand the shock.”

Raddles nods. “Okay, got it. I’ll, um, I’ll use this weird commemorative mug.” 

Raddles picks up a grey mug with the name of the park emblazoned across it. It looks lumpy, like someone handmade it. She rushes to the sink on the opposite side of the counter. The pipes squeal as she turns the knob to draw water. 

Suddenly, the room pitches sideways. The floor spins beneath Feinberg’s feet. Feinberg would have fallen over if he hadn’t been kneeling. Thankfully, Raddles is too preoccupied to notice. 

Feinberg closes his eyes. It does nothing to help the intense vertigo, but he couldn’t stand watching Couriway get paler and paler.

As Raddles grinds up the medicine with god-knows-what, the familiar haze of oncoming unconsciousness creeps into Feinberg’s mind. 

“Rad,” Feinberg mumbles. His voice is much frailer than he’d expected. It’s barely audible. 

Raddles has no trouble hearing him, thanks to her catlike senses. “Yeah, Fine? You feeling okay?”

“I need you to make sure I don’t let go of Couri.” Feinberg cracks open his eyes, meeting Raddles’s pinprick pupils. “Even if I pass out, make sure my hand stays right here. Can you do that for me?”

Raddles finishes crushing the pills with what looks like a blurry stapler. “What do you mean, even if you pass out? Were you poisoned too?” 

“No, this just…” Feinberg lets his eyes fall closed again. “Takes a lot out of me. I’ll be okay. Focus on him.”

The sink rumbles to life again. Raddles must be mixing the medicine into a solution now. “God, Fine, you don’t sound okay at all.”

“I know,” is all Feinberg can force out.

Raddles joins Feinberg at Couriway’s side a moment later. Her tail wraps around Feinberg’s shoulders.

Raddles speaks softly, coaxing Couriway to sit up so he can drink the concoction of antitoxins. 

Feinberg feels Couriway shift slightly beneath his touch. His arm is raised a little higher.

The fog in Feinberg’s skull is too thick for him to hear anything else for a while. His attention is focused solely on the place where his palm meets Couriway’s forehead.

Hinges squeak. The door slams against the wall. Boots stomp against the planks beneath Feinberg’s knees.

“Fire rescue and EMS,” someone says, their gravelly voice harsh against Feinberg’s ears. “We were informed of a poisoning victim?”

Raddles says something. It sounds like “over here,” followed by another few words Feinberg can’t make out.

Someone else joins Feinberg at Couriway’s side. They grab his arm. They try to lift his hand. Something jolts through Feinberg’s fingertips.

The next thing Feinberg hears is a very manly scream from the stranger next to him. 

Feinberg’s eyes snap open, but his vision is spotty. He can feel, rather than hear Couriway’s breaths. 

“Sir,” the stranger says, jostling his shoulder. “Sir, I need you to let go.”

Feinberg shakes his head. 

Raddles speaks again. Maybe she’s explaining why Feinberg can’t move his hand. Maybe she’s reciting the alphabet. Feinberg wouldn't know the difference.

The muttering and murmuring continues for a little while before a few sharp words snap Feinberg out of his stupor momentarily. 

“Call time of death.”

Feinberg nearly vomits. The only thing keeping his mind tethered to his body is the faint, yet steady heartbeat beneath his fingertips. The breath he can feel rustling the hair on his arm. 

“Time of death?” Raddles repeats. She sounds nothing short of heartbroken. 

“No one is dead,” Feinberg says, counting Couriway’s heartbeats. “Couri’s breathing. His pulse isn’t strong, but it’s there.”

“Sir, I’m afraid you’re mistaken. I’m hearing no airflow. My partner can’t find a pulse.”

Feinberg shakes his head. “Check again.”

“Sir—“

Raddles cuts off the stranger. “Fine is a healer. He wouldn’t lie. Just do it.”

A few agonizing seconds pass. 

“I’m sorry. There’s nothing we can do. The time of death is 4:57 AM.”

Raddles melts into Feinberg’s right shoulder, her tail gripping his left arm with more strength than Feinberg possesses in his entire body. 

Feinberg lacks the energy to speak, but he knows Couriway is still alive. He knows the scent of death. He is familiar with the heaviness it leaves behind, in the air, in the hearts of those nearby. 

It’s not here. Not yet. 

He’s never done this before, but he needs to prove that Couriway isn’t a lost cause. 

It’s time to test that theory Feinberg had all those years ago. 

Gritting his teeth with enough force to crack his jaw, Feinberg sifts through his memories. He recalls countless nights spent watching reality TV on the couch. He replays petty arguments over in his mind, murmuring the words he once said with perfect clarity. 

He imagines Couriway’s eyes. 

“Fine. What are you doing?” 

That’s Raddles’s voice. She sounds panicked. 

Feinberg can’t feel his body anymore. It’s an incorporeal mass of pain, numbness, and electricity swirling somewhere amongst his memories.

Yet, somehow, Feinberg can still feel Couriway’s heartbeat thrumming against his fingertips.

You once saved my life. Let me return the favor.

“Fine? Feinberg!”

Raddles.

“That—that’s not possible. I swear I didn’t feel anything.”

Who is that? That voice is absent in Feinberg’s memories. 

“What the hell is going on in here?”

Nerdi. 

“What happened to Feinberg?”

Fulham. 

Damn it. Where’s Couriway?

“F-Fein? Fein? Why isn’t he moving? Can someone fucking say something?”

There he is.

Feinberg lets out a breath. It could be his last, and he wouldn’t feel a shred of despair. 

Couriway’s lungs are on fire. His head throbs like it had been used as a basketball. His stomach churns and aches similarly to when he ate gas station sushi that one time. He can’t feel the lower half of his body. 

His vision is shot. He doesn’t know if he’s wearing his glasses, but it likely wouldn’t make any difference. Splotches of grey static dance across his retinas no matter how many times he blinks to clear them.

His chest rumbles as though he were speaking, but nothing reaches his ears through the ringing in his skull.

Part of him wishes Fruitberries had just killed him instead of inflicting this torture upon him like hellfire.

The pain vanishes. It’s a sudden shift from agony to numbness that turns Couriway’s limbs to gelatin. He can feel the back of his head meet something soft. 

His vision clears just enough to identify Feinberg’s blurry face, his brow creased. Is it from worry? Or is he in pain? Couriway hopes it’s not the latter. 

Couriway knows, instinctively, that Feinberg is responsible for the sudden disappearance of his agony. He would thank his roommate, not just for that, but for everything, but his lips won’t move and his breaths are too thin to shape words.

Couriway floats for a moment. Maybe several. 

Someone lifts his head. He doesn’t recognize the fuzzy mass of purple, but if Feinberg allowed them to get near him, he trusts them. 

They bring something to his lips. Maybe Couriway hears the word medicine.

Couriway doesn’t have much say in the matter, but he would have gratefully accepted the medicine regardless. He doubts it will do anything to neutralize Fruitberries’s poison, but it’s worth a shot. Icarus isn’t the type to give up.

Couriway can’t tell if the medicine helps. He’s still numb all over, which means Feinberg is nearby. He hopes Feinberg isn’t too upset at him. He would have liked to apologize properly.

Even though Couriway can’t feel pain, he can sense the weakness of his heart. He knows how fast Fruitberries’s poison kills. It’s a miracle he survived this long already.

He mentally thanks Feinberg for making his death a painless one.

It could have been seconds or an eternity later when Couriway opens his eyes, entirely against his own will. It’s as if his heart had been jump-started, beating nearly out of his chest.

He sits up abruptly, gasping for lost air. The first thing he notices is the lack of numbness anywhere. Though he’d only just brushed with death, Couriway is pushing hands and bodies out of the way to search for Feinberg. 

The ringing in his ears quiets as he scrambles to clear his line of sight, and a chorus of voices meet his ears all at once. 

“Fein? Feinberg! This isn’t funny, get up!”

Couriway doesn’t recognize that voice. It’s a woman’s voice, laced with something akin to primal fear. 

“That’s not possible. I swear I didn’t feel anything,” a second stranger says.

Couriway throws his legs off the side of the surface he’s laying on, crumpling to his knees and crawling in the direction of the woman’s voice. 

She was yelling Feinberg’s name. Couriway’s common sense tells him that Feinberg should be nearby. 

It doesn’t take long to find the woman and Feinberg, kneeling at the foot of the cot Couriway recently vacated.

The woman, the purple-haired individual from earlier, is gripping Feinberg’s shoulders and shaking him like a piñata.

Feinberg’s eyes are cloudy, fixed on the ceiling. He looks pale. His limbs are limp at his sides.

Couriway stares blankly at the scene in front of him. 

So many things are happening at once, but all Couriway can focus on is Feinberg, unmoving and sickly. 

“What the hell is going on in here?” 

When did Nerdi get here?

“What happened to Feinberg?”

Fulham, too?

Nothing makes sense. Feinberg looks… bad, and Couriway doesn’t remember coming to this place. He doesn’t remember Nerdi and Fulham showing up and he doesn’t have a damn clue who the rest of these people are.

“Fein?” Couriway reaches for Feinberg, and the woman lets go, scooting over to allow Couriway to get a better look. 

Up close, Feinberg looks worse. His skin is damp with sweat, but when Couriway places the back of his hand on Feinberg’s forehead, his temperature is worryingly high. His eyes have slipped closed, and his brow is cinched tight. 

“Fein,” Couriway repeats, panic rising in his chest.

Couriway whips his head around, finding Nerdi and Fulham immediately. They’re standing near the door, exchanging words that Couriway can’t hear with two strangers dressed in firefighting gear.

“Why isn’t he moving?” Couriway demands. When no one pays him any attention, Couriway raises his voice, uncaring of the scrapes lining his throat. “Can someone fucking say something?”

“I-I don’t know what to say,” the woman next to Couriway is the first to speak. “You—you were poisoned, so me and Fein found this first aid cabin to get you some medicine, but…”

Couriway’s grip on Feinberg’s shoulders tightens. “But?”

“The EMTs got here and they said your heart wasn’t beating. They pronounced you dead.”

All the other clamoring ceases.

Couriway blinks. He isn’t sure what to say to that. 

“Then, then Feinberg started mumbling something I couldn’t understand, and he got real tense. He was shaking like crazy. His face was so red, and then… then it wasn’t.” The woman covers her eyes with her hands, pressing the heels of her palms into her eyelids. “It was like the strings holding him together snapped. He fell over, and I caught him. He looked at me, but I don’t think he was lucid. That’s when you woke up.”

Now Couriway is truly speechless.

You saved me… again?

“Raddles, you’re saying…” Nerdi fills the stretching silence. “Fine brought Icarus back to life?”

“That’s what it looked like,” Raddles says, pulling her knees to her chest. “But I know how his power works. Everything he does comes at a cost.”

“Don’t tell me.” Couriway chokes on his words. “Please don’t tell me.”

One of the EMTs kneels next to Couriway. They listen to Feinberg’s heart. Then his lungs. “His pulse is stable. His breath sounds obstructed.”

Couriway could faint. “He’s alive?”

The EMT nods. 

Nerdi clicks his tongue. It’s a habit Couriway notices when Nerdi is lost in thought. “Maybe he didn’t bring you back to life. Maybe it just looked like he did.”

“What on Earth does that mean?” asks Fulham. His silly accent brings the tiniest smile to Couriway's face.

“Maybe he absorbed the effects of the poison like a human sponge,” Raddles suggests.

Couriway bites his lip. “If that’s true, isn’t he dying?”

“He’s defied worse odds,” Nerdi reminds Couriway.

Couriway can’t handle the images that flash before his eyes. Images of Feinberg, broken and bloody, slumped against a stupid, rusty dumpster. 

“He was already worn out from healing my wings,” Couriway says, his voice hoarse. “And from when I stabbed him.”

“He also used his power to help ease your pain a few minutes ago. He was in pretty bad shape after that,” Raddles adds. “My hope is that he’s just exhausted from expending so much energy.”

“Whatever happened, he’s a goddamn hero.” Nerdi fixes Couriway with a stern look. “You’re explaining everything the second we make sure Feinberg’s okay.”

The EMT loops an arm around Feinberg’s neck, the other sliding under his knees. They speak as they stand, lifting Feinberg from the floor. “We can chat at the hospital. I don’t know how much time your friend here has. I advise the rest of you to get checked out, too.”

“I agree,” Nerdi says. “Anyone who can’t fit in the ambulance, come with me, my car isn’t far.”

Before leaving, Nerdi glances at Couriway. “I don’t think I need to convince you to stay with Feinberg, Icarus?”

“I’ll come too,” Raddles says.

Couriway is thankful for the company. He isn’t certain he could handle being alone with Feinberg so deathly ill. “Let’s go.”

Chapter Text

Feinberg wakes in pain. His muscles ache. His head aches. His stomach—you get the picture.

Briefly, he wonders if he’d made himself sick again from one too many all-nighters spent studying.

Then he hears the steady beeping of a heart rate monitor and throws that theory out the window. 

He tries to sit up. He sends the command to his muscles dozens of times, but they don’t obey him. It almost feels like they atrophied, but that doesn’t make sense.

Okay, if he can’t sit up, he will try opening his eyes.

Thankfully, Feinberg hasn’t forgotten how to open his eyes, and his valiant effort is rewarded with a blurry tiled ceiling and a sharp stab of pain between his temples.

Wonderful. Where are the opiates when a guy needs them?

Wait.

Feinberg hasn’t been hospitalized in so long, he almost forgot that painkillers have no effect on him. It has something to do with his power, if he has to guess. He isn’t certain. He’s only ever used his power once. Since then, he’s been too afraid of accidentally harming someone to try again.

Even before he discovered his power, Feinberg never told anyone about his intolerance to opiates and anti-inflammatory drugs, but Feinberg suspects his parents figured it out eventually. They never asked him about it, though.

Feinberg can’t blame them. He didn’t exactly grow up rich, so he can understand why his parents were reluctant to send him to a fancy doctor to run all kinds of expensive tests and push costly experimental medicine.

Anyway, painkillers can’t kill Feinberg’s pain, and he can’t numb his own pain either, so he quickly developed a tolerance.

Don’t get him wrong, that doesn’t make Feinberg’s situation any less miserable. 

He stares at the ceiling, waiting for his memory to fill him in on what landed him here. 

It doesn’t.

Seconds turn to minutes, and Feinberg is no closer to an answer. His stomach begins to churn with something other than intense hunger, and the steady beeping to his left picks up speed.

Feinberg attempts a deep breath, willing his heart to calm the fuck down, but it catches in his throat and forces him to cough it out.

Lying on his back puts too much strain on Feinberg’s airway, so he manages to sit up from the power of adrenaline alone. His muscles scream at him, of course, but they wouldn’t be any better off without oxygen.

Feinberg breathes shallowly, hoping to keep quiet. He can’t draw the attention of any nearby staff. He can’t. Not when he doesn’t know what happened. 

He needs time alone to think.

As if on cue, a noise to Feinberg’s right catches his attention. He glances over and nearly jumps out of bed. 

How long has this random dude been sitting here? 

The brown-haired individual was sleeping, curled in one of those cheap plastic chairs, but it seems Feinberg’s attempt to stay quiet was unsuccessful, rousing the guy from his uncomfortable nap.

The guy lifts his head, blinking at Feinberg.

Feinberg glares back, unblinking.

The guy seems to snap out of whatever exhausted stupor he was in, rising from his chair in an instant. He rushes to Feinberg’s side, something like concern swirling in his dark eyes. 

Feinberg instinctively flinches away, scooting to the other side of the bed. The beeping gets faster.

The stranger doesn’t seem to notice Feinberg’s discomfort. “Feinberg,” he says, his voice a reverent whisper. “You’re awake. How—how do you feel?”

Feinberg doesn’t answer. He takes a steadying breath, followed by another. He doesn’t take his eyes off of the strange man at his bedside.

Though he doesn’t know this man, the mounting worry in his eyes squeezes Feinberg’s heart. Feinberg would like to soothe that anxiety, if only to ease his own nerves, but he has not a clue how.

The man is clearly expecting Feinberg to speak, so that’s what Feinberg will do. 

Feinberg steels himself. “Do I know you?”

Christ. Feinberg sounds like a chronic smoker. His voice is in shreds, his words barely audible. 

What the hell happened?

To Feinberg’s dismay, the man’s expression pinches further, his eyes widening behind rounded glasses.

The man reaches for Feinberg before thinking better of it and dropping his arm. “Feinberg, I’m your roommate. Couriway.”

Feinberg narrows his eyes. “I live alone.”

“Feinberg,” Couriway says slowly, his tone solidifying. “If this is some kind of joke, it isn’t funny.”

Feinberg almost scoffs. He isn’t sure where the desire to be so standoffish came from. “I could say the same thing to you. Pretending to know me and freaking me out isn’t funny, either.”

Strangely, though Feinberg isn’t sure where the words came from, it feels right to bicker with the man before him. It feels comfortable. Safe.

“Ugh,” Couriway groans. “It’s impossible to tell if you’re lying to me or not.”

Feinberg can sympathize with that. “I don’t lie to people without good reason.”

Couriway slumps into the mattress, resting his head in his arms. “Is that a yes or a no?”

Feinberg meets Couriway’s eyes. “I’m not lying to you.”

“Like that means anything coming from you!” Couriway’s sudden change in attitude sends a jolt of alarm up Feinberg’s spine. 

Feinberg recoils, flinching. He holds up his arms defensively, though, like most things he’s been doing, he can’t discern why.

You filthy liar. You have some fucking nerve.

That’s Couriway’s voice. Feinberg is sure of it. Why does Feinberg remember it? Why is he so angry?

Nothing makes any sense. Feinberg can’t remember why he’s in the hospital and he doesn’t recognize the random guy claiming to be his roommate and the buzzing of the fluorescent lights overhead is pissing him off.

Feinberg wants to go home. 

Where is home, exactly?

Something passes over Couriway’s eyes. His expression shifts from anxious to contemplative. He mutters something to himself that Feinberg can’t hear.

Then, Couriway glances back at Feinberg. “Do you know who Fruitberries is?”

Fruitberries? What kind of name is—

Icarus, do you know what this lunatic is prattling on about?

An involuntary shudder razes Feinberg’s body. It takes all of his strength to remain upright as his muscles quake and threaten to give out. 

Feinberg’s mind may not remember, but it seems his body does.

“No, but…” Feinberg watches Couriway carefully. “This Fruitberries is the reason I’m here, isn’t it?”

Couriway’s jaw drops open. Feinberg can’t discern the emotion in his eyes, but it isn’t a good one.

“Oh, my god.” Couriway stands, wobbling. “Oh, my god. Fuck. You really don’t remember.”

“I…” Feinberg searches his memories, concentrating even as his temples ache, but it’s no use. It’s like trying to hold on to sand—anything Feinberg finds slips through his fingers instantly.

What he can remember is a blur of emotions. Extreme, overwhelming emotions that come and go in waves, each attempting to breach the hull of Feinberg’s skull.

Feinberg shuts off the tap of thoughts when a particularly sickening surge of fear crashes into him. It culminates in a sharp pain just above his heart. 

If Feinberg didn’t know any better, he’d think himself dying. 

The pain is too high to be his heart. Too far left to be his lungs. It lacks the tingling sensation of a clot. It’s likely an old injury flaring up, but Feinberg doesn’t remember getting hurt in that spot.

Couriway turns abruptly. “I have to go.”

Before Feinberg can think better of it, he asks, quietly, “are you coming back?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be right back.” Couriway stumbles to the door, throws it open, and disappears into the hallway. He forgets to close the door behind him. 

Feinberg massages his left shoulder, hoping to ease the pain. He knows it won’t help, but it’s something to do. 

Feinberg hates feeling helpless, and this? This is worse than being helpless. Feinberg is entirely reliant on other people to help him put the pieces together and this so-called roommate of his is clearly hiding something. 

Feinberg is certain it has something to do with this Fruitberries character and the strange ache in his chest. 

After some time, either minutes or hours, there's a knock on the door before it swings open. Well, further open.

A doctor—that’s right, a whole-ass lab coated doctor, not a nurse—walks in, checks Feinberg’s chart without so much as a spare glance at him, and mutters to herself about something. 

Feinberg watches the doctor brush a long strand of dark hair out of her face. Does she not see him? 

Feinberg sits up straighter. “Um, hello?”

The doctor jumps. The clipboard nearly slips from her fingers before she catches it with her opposite hand. 

“Oh! Mister, um, Feinberg.” The doctor glances back down at Feinberg’s chart before composing herself. “Forgive me for not greeting you earlier, I was intrigued by your case but I didn’t want to bother you after you only just regained consciousness.”

Feinberg’s shoulders lock in place. A sense of unease creeps up his spine, stretching it taut against the pillow behind him. He grinds his teeth together, trying to make sense of what’s so intriguing about him.

Retrograde amnesia is common enough that most doctors shrug their shoulders at it. Feinberg would know, he almost became one. 

Feinberg can’t think of anything else out of place. He and Reign are the only people who know about his power, so it can’t be related to that, unless he told someone else and forgot. 

“What’s so intriguing about it?” Feinberg doesn’t unclench his jaw as he speaks. Even a blind person could notice the apprehension in Feinberg’s body language. His hackles are raised high into the air, his head tipped down like a frightened animal.

The doctor doesn’t say anything. She stares at Feinberg, unblinking. She glances at his chart. Then back at him. Then back to his chart.

The door swings open again. Feinberg braces himself for another doctor to join the first in studying him like a sample beneath a microscope. 

“Sorry I’m late, I had to make a few phone calls.” 

Feinberg turns his body toward the door, holding his breath for half a second before letting it out in a relieved huff.

It’s just Couriway. 

Wait. 

Just Couriway? Since when is Couriway trustworthy in any capacity? 

Couriway glances at the doctor, who is obviously avoiding eye contact with Feinberg. Then Couriway looks at Feinberg. He does that thing where he blinks and his eyes instantly soften.  

Couriway approaches the doctor, gestures for her to lean down, and whispers something over her shoulder. 

The doctor murmurs something that sounds like “thank you,” before turning back to Feinberg. 

Couriway returns to his uncomfortable chair on Feinberg’s right. Feinberg’s spine slackens imperceptibly. He releases his death grip on his own arm, hissing as his fingernails leave crescent-shaped dents in his skin.

“Do you want me to stay with you? I mean, can I— like, I don’t want to invade your privacy,” Couriway stammers. 

Feinberg shrugs, but he isn’t certain how comfortable he would be alone with a stranger. 

There are too many things Feinberg still doesn’t understand. The one thing he does understand, despite the man’s confusing behavior, is Couriway. 

Couriway is Feinberg’s roommate. Plain and simple. At the very least, Couriway has a vested interest in keeping Feinberg alive and healthy so he can pay his share of the rent. 

The doctor clears her throat. “Right. Sorry about that. Um, your amnesia by itself isn’t necessarily, um, surprising, but the way it manifested is peculiar. It didn’t come from a brain injury. Your memory should be fine.”

Feinberg glances at Couriway, who is already staring at him. Feinberg looks away, embarrassed. 

“A-additionally, we’ve never heard of someone with powers as strong as yours. The most anyone on staff here can do is heal severe avulsions, oh, which is—“

“When skin or muscle is torn away from the underlying bone,” Feinberg finishes. “I know.”

The doctor blinks at Feinberg, then she smiles politely, a glimmer in her eyes that tells Feinberg she doesn’t get paid enough for his interruptions. 

“Right,” the doctor continues. “If any of our healers were to try what you did, their body wouldn’t let them. They’d lose consciousness and their power would cut itself off, but yours…”

“Mine still works when I’m unconscious,” Feinberg says. “I know that, too.”

“Yes, and it seems those natural inhibitors that prevent our brains from issuing commands that may harm our bodies don’t intervene when you push past what is normally considered the human limit.” 

Feinberg nods. “So, what does that have to do with my memory loss? Are you saying instead of physical repercussions, my power had negative effects on my mental state?”

“That is… one theory, yes.”

“What are the other theories?”

“Another possibility that I briefly considered was that your body had to sacrifice some of its functions to keep your power active after it exhausted all of your energy.” The doctor taps her fingers against the clipboard in her hands. “Your brain couldn’t keep up with everything that was going on, so it couldn’t catalogue what happened.”

Feinberg watches the doctor fidget with the clipboard, his mind wandering. “What about the stuff before that? I forgot about a lot more than that night.”

“We can’t be sure. Your power could have caused all kinds of complications. Seizures, hypoxia, stroke. We’ve never seen anything like your situation, so all we can do is guess.”

“His power has caused him to pass out before, but it never looked like anything serious.” Couriway sits up. The cheap plastic chair squeaks beneath him. “He never lost his memory before.”

So, it seems Couriway knew about Feinberg’s power after all. Maybe they really were—are—roommates.

“I really wish we had an answer,” the doctor replies emphatically. “With traumatic brain injuries, we can generally come up with a prognosis, but everything about Feinberg is normal. He shows no signs of mental deterioration other than amnesia. The good news is that we’re certain it’s not life-threatening.”

Couriway lets out a short breath. That was clearly not the answer he was hoping for. “Is there any chance he’ll remember eventually?”

Feinberg recognizes the look in the doctor’s eyes instantly. It’s pity, but it’s not directed at him.

The doctor glances at Feinberg, and then, as if coming to a decision, turns back to Couriway. “Yes, but you should be prepared for the possibility that he never recovers the memories he lost.”

Couriway nods solemnly. 

What does that mean? Is he going to leave if Feinberg doesn’t remember him? Is he upset that Feinberg never told him about his power?

Feinberg holds up a hand. “Wait, are you guys sure my power is what caused this? I-I don’t even use it, much less do anything dangerous with it. The one time I did use it, nothing bad happened.”

Couriway sighs. Actually, it sounds more like a groan. “Feinberg, I watched you heal your own stab wound. After you took out the knife with your bare hands.”

Feinberg raises his eyebrows. He can do that?

That explains the pain in his chest. 

Feinberg clears his throat. “So, that makes Fruitberries the guy that stabbed me. Am I right?”

Couriway stares at Feinberg. The doctor stares at Couriway. 

“Yes,” Couriway says stiffly. “Fruitberries was a supervillain.”

A supervillain. Feinberg was stabbed by a supervillain? 

As Feinberg gathers more information, things get more confusing. That’s not usually how the investigative process goes.

Feinberg decides to pry. “Was?”

There’s that deer-in-headlights look again. Feinberg has known Couriway for all of five minutes and he’s already figured out how to get under the guy’s skin.

Just when Feinberg thought Couriway may have wisened up and shut his mouth, he presses a hand to his forehead. “He’s locked up now.”

Interesting. 

Feinberg hums. “How did that happen?”

“I… don’t know. It’s classified police data or something.” Couriway’s shoulders hunch. He avoids Feinberg’s eyes. 

“Are you really my roommate?” Feinberg asks innocently.

“Huh? I—“

“Because you seem to take me for a dumbass, when anyone who’s been around me for more than two seconds would know I am not. Classified police data or something? Could you sound any more suspicious?”

For some deeply disturbing reason, a smile flickers across Couriway’s lips. It almost looks fond. 

As quickly as it appeared, Couriway’s smile drops. “I’m telling you the truth. If I knew why he was arrested, I would tell you.”

Feinberg crosses his arms. “So it has nothing to do with him stabbing me? That was an isolated incident from which he faced zero consequences?”

“That’s hardly the worst thing he’s come away from unpunished,” Couriway mutters, which Feinberg senses the truth of.

“That’s the super part of the supervillain thing, right?” Feinberg ignores another surge of pain in his chest. “If he were a regular villain, stabbing me would have been more than enough to land him behind bars.”

“Was that…” Couriway blinks at Feinberg. “Did you just make a joke?”

Feinberg can’t help the grin that spreads across his face. “I’m known to do that occasionally.”

“Um, anyway, mister Feinberg,” the doctor says, probably growing impatient after sitting through that conversation. “We want to keep you here overnight, and then if all goes well, you can be discharged tomorrow.”

Feinberg nods. He can’t say he likes the idea of staying another night in a strange hospital, but it gives him time to sort out his thoughts.

“If you have any questions or if anything changes, please ask a nurse to come find me.” The doctor sets down Feinberg’s chart and leaves the room. 

“I have a lot of questions,” Feinberg mutters under his breath. “But nothing you can answer.” 

Couriway’s heart aches, because this is Feinberg, right down to his eerily accurate perception, stubborn self-assured attitude, and dry sense of humor, but he’s not Couriway’s Feinberg.

He’s the Feinberg he was before he met Couriway.

This time, instead of meeting Feinberg with a suitcase and polite handshake, Couriway meets Feinberg as a stranger in a hospital room who claims to be his friend.

A stranger who’s responsible for Feinberg’s predicament. A stranger who almost killed Feinberg three times over.

For the last week, Couriway has been toiling over an unasked question. He paced the length of his bedroom, wondering what possessed Feinberg to attempt to neutralize poison with his power.

For days, Couriway has been dying to ask Feinberg:

Why? Why did you do it? Even after I hurt you over and over? Why did you sacrifice yourself for me again? Were you ready to die in my place?

Then, when Feinberg finally wakes up, he doesn’t remember anything. 

Couriway may never get his answer.

Couriway faces away from Feinberg, leaning against his arm, braced against the wall. He takes a steadying breath. 

Couriway can feel Feinberg’s eyes on him. He has to keep it together. If he loses his cool, Feinberg will, too.

Then Feinberg, hotheaded, tight-lipped Feinberg, has the audacity to ask, “are you okay?” 

Feinberg’s voice is wretched, but dripping with concern, at least by Feinberg standards. He has no reason to care about Couriway, but he acts like he does anyway.

Couriway’s resolve shatters at his feet. Tears spill past his eyelids as he lets out a stifled sob. He presses his mouth to his arm, his glasses digging into his nose as his forehead meets the wall. 

“Don’t worry about me,” Couriway manages between shallow breaths. 

Feinberg hums, low in his throat, a sound so heartbreakingly familiar to Couriway that he recognizes it instantly. 

Feinberg always hums to himself when he’s trying to work through a problem. Couriway can’t count how many times he’s heard it through the thin walls of their shared apartment. He can’t put into words how much he missed it.

Feinberg clears his throat. “I am worried about you, but I don’t know why. I don’t usually worry about people.”

Couriway barks out a bitter laugh, tears dripping from his cheeks to the floor. “God, Feinberg, are you trying to kill me?”

“No.” Feinberg is quiet for a moment. “Have I tried that in the past?”

“No,” Couriway answers, sniffling. “The opposite actually.”

Feinberg hums again. Couriway never wants him to stop. He never wants to hear it again. He wants to melt into the tile.

“I healed you? How did that go?”

“You, uh,” Couriway stammers. 

How does he explain to Feinberg that he conjured an even more powerful pair of wings out of thin air and managed to bring Couriway back from the brink of death?

Feinberg shifts behind Couriway. “Was it that bad?”

“No!” Couriway reacts without thinking. “No, you did great. You just… went a little too far, I think, which, uh, knocked you out.”

“Oh,” Feinberg replies, as though he hadn’t expected that answer.

A tense silence fills the room. 

Couriway hates this. He hates this more than getting his wings burned off. He hates this more than pacing his bedroom, wondering why Feinberg put his life on the line again and again.

Most of the time, the quiet shared between Feinberg and Couriway was comfortable. They existed in each other’s company and not much else. Even when they argued, Feinberg never let silence stretch on for too long. He’d always attempt to diffuse the tension with a joke that would make Couriway laugh even if it wasn’t funny. 

This silence is nothing short of uncomfortable. It reminds Couriway of when they first met, when Feinberg’s eyes would linger on him for a few seconds before darting away. Couriway wondered if Feinberg had something to say, but he pretended not to notice. 

“This is a dumb question to ask, but…” Feinberg trails off. Couriway is about to ask him to continue before Feinberg reads his mind. “Who are you? Can I… Can I trust you?”

Couriway nearly loses his balance, his arm braced against the wall threatening to give out.

Couriway should turn around, but his feet are glued in place. “What makes you ask that?”

Feinberg is eerily silent. Couriway can’t even hear his breaths. “I… I vaguely remember you calling me a filthy liar?”

All the air is punched out of Couriway’s lungs. 

Of all the things for Feinberg to remember. It has to be that derisive moment, when Icarus thought Feinberg was a cold-blooded killer, in the seconds between the moment Icarus stabbed him and when Icarus twisted the knife.

“I was really angry,” Couriway answers lamely. “And wrong. You weren’t lying to me.”

A knock on the door catches Couriway’s attention. He turns to Feinberg, silently asking for permission. 

Feinberg stares at him blankly. “You’re crying.”

“Damn it, Feinberg, can I let that guy in or not?”

Feinberg shrugs. 

Couriway sighs. At least losing his memories hasn’t made Feinberg any less frustrating to speak to. Couriway would hate it if that happened. 

Couriway opens the door. 

Nerdi brushes past him, marching right in. 

Not even a hello? Seriously?

Feinberg regards Couriway’s colleague with a noncommittal look, but the way his fists curl in the sheets isn’t lost on Couriway.

Nerdi clears his throat. “Hello there. I’m Aegis, the professional hero assigned to your case.”

Feinberg’s gaze is steely. “My case?” 

Nerdi nods curtly. “You caused quite a lot of trouble, you know. It’s awfully convenient that you’ve decided to forget it all.”

Before he can think better of it, Couriway reaches out, placing a hand on Nerdi’s shoulder. “What are you doing?”

Nerdi doesn’t take his eyes off of Feinberg. “My job.”

Couriway grits his teeth. “What part of your job entails interrogating a man with amnesia minutes after he woke up from a coma?” 

“The part that has dealt with Fruitberries for a decade,” Nerdi replies, shrugging Couriway’s hand off of his shoulder. “Don’t touch me. It’s unprofessional.”

Feinberg hums quietly, his features drawn into an expression of concentration.

“There are zero documented cases of power overuse that cause memory loss,” Nerdi continues. “But amnesia is a common defense for those involved in violent crime.”

“Nerdi, stop,” Couriway mutters. 

Nerdi ignores him. “It’s easy to forget everything you’ve done. That way the guilt doesn’t eat you alive.”

“Are you accusing me of something?” Feinberg asks. His tone is cold, lacking the affability he took on when speaking with Couriway. 

“That depends. Do you have something to confess?”

Feinberg smirks. It’s sour. Humorless. “Yeah. I actually stabbed myself and pretended it was Fruitberries for fun. Quote me on that.”

“Impeding the law is a crime just the same as aiding and abetting.” Nerdi’s voice drops to a sharp whisper. 

“So that’s what you’re accusing me of?” Feinberg crosses his arms, tucking his trembling hands beneath his biceps. 

Couriway slips between Nerdi and Feinberg, blocking Feinberg from Nerdi’s view. “Nerdi, where the hell did this come from?”

“Aegis,” Nerdi snaps. Couriway has never heard him so detached, never seen his eyes so desolate.

Couriway steps closer, leaning over Nerdi’s shoulder to whisper in his ear. “What did Fruitberries say to you?”

Nerdi doesn’t miss a beat. “Why are you so intent on defending a criminal?”

Couriway can’t help it. An incredulous laugh leaves his mouth as he backs away. “A criminal? Fein?”

Nerdi pivots to the side, turning his attention back to Feinberg. “It’s interesting that you remember being stabbed but not anything else about that night.”

Couriway turns just in time to watch Feinberg sit up straighter. 

“I don’t remember being stabbed,” Feinberg replies cooly. “Couriway told me. Said I healed myself. Is that not what happened? Or were you not there?”

Nerdi’s eyes narrow. “How’d you know I wasn't there when it happened?”

“I didn’t. But I do now.” Feinberg flashes a sliver of a smile. It looks more like a snarl. “You heroes are all the same. Useless, power-hungry frauds. You can’t even pressure people into false confessions without tripping over yourselves.”

“Insult me all you want.” Nerdi places a hand on his hip. “It won’t help you. The evidence is stacked against you.”

Feinberg scoffs. “The evidence I conveniently don’t remember? Care to tell me what it is?”

“We have documented evidence of you colluding with Fruitberries not once, but twice. Additionally, you refused to cooperate with law enforcement on the scene.” Nerdi waves a hand. “It doesn’t help that the guy himself showed us your text exchanges between each other, Fine.”

Feinberg pales. It’s subtle, given how sickly his appearance was, but Couriway notices, his stomach churning in response. 

Nerdi places both of his hands at the end of the bed, leaning forward to meet Feinberg’s eyes. “Care to tell me the truth?”

Feinberg chews on his lip. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bullshit,” Nerdi barks. “Shall I quote what you said a few minutes ago? I stabbed myself and pretended it was Fruitberries for fun?”

Feinberg lets out a tense breath. “I was clearly joking.”

“We’ll see how that defense holds up in court.”

Feinberg’s eyes flash with something Couriway has only seen from the man once before: fear. The heart monitor next to Feinberg beeps steadily, speeding up as the seconds of silence tick on.

Nerdi doesn’t move a muscle. He stares at Feinberg, who shuts his eyes, his brow wrinkling as he attempts to concentrate.

“I… I remember…” Feinberg trails off. His voice is strained, as though he has no energy to spare on speaking. “Um, I think…”

Feinberg’s hand comes up to grasp his left shoulder. His palm presses against the ghost of the wound Couriway inflicted. “It was dark, and I had a hard time breathing. I was… scared, I think. But I wasn’t scared about myself, it was… something else.”

When you stabbed me, I was afraid. Not of dying, but of you finding out who I was only after you killed me. It scared me so bad, I had no choice.

“Is that so?” Nerdi’s tone is mocking. He sounds more like the supervillain he supposedly condemns than the hero he swore to be. “I recall you acting cool as a cucumber. In fact, you—“

Something in Couriway snaps. “Nerdi, that’s enough!” Couriway hauls his colleague away from Feinberg by the collar of his shirt, practically throwing him against the wall. “This isn’t like you. It's cruel.”

Nerdi scowls. “I was so close—“

“To giving my roommate a fucking heart attack? Yeah, I could tell. I’m surprised you couldn’t. Or maybe you didn’t care.” Couriway can almost feel steam coming out of his ears. This kind of uncontrollable rage is alien to him. “You could suspect Feinberg of murdering a family of four and I still wouldn’t let you speak to him like that.”

Nerdi sighs. It sounds more frustrated than remorseful. “He colluded with the deadliest supervillain—“

“So did I!” Couriway manages to keep his voice down by sheer willpower alone. “He saved my life, Nerdi. He almost gave his in return, and this is how you repay him? Get the hell out of here. I’m his emergency contact and medical proxy, and I don't want to see you near him again. You’re impeding his recovery and making the agency look bad.”

Though Nerdi is his supervisor, Icarus ultimately outranks Aegis. 

Nerdi leaves without a word.

“You two know each other.” Feinberg’s words are phrased like a question, yet spoken like a statement. 

“Yes,” Couriway admits. Right now, he’s wishing they didn’t know each other. “His name is Nerdi. We were next door neighbors as kids. He went off to hero school and many years later he invited me to work for him as a designer.”

It’s not a lie, Couriway tells himself, it’s just not the whole truth.

“What an honor,” Feinberg deadpans. 

Couriway sighs, turning back to Feinberg. “I’m so sorry about that. I had no idea he would act like that.”

Feinberg laughs wryly, bordering on hysterical. “I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that. I…”

Feinberg pauses. His eyes flick up to meet Couriway’s before drifting back down to his hands, folded on his lap. “I was scared out of my mind, dude. I thought for sure I was going to jail.”

The Feinberg that Couriway is used to would never admit to being afraid so plainly. It makes Couriway wonder what changed.

Couriway decides to tell the truth. “Really? I never would have guessed. You gave Aegis a run for his money. People usually fold immediately when he interrogates them and I’ve never seen him locked in like that before.”

Feinberg rolls his eyes. “Of course I wouldn’t let it show. When someone’s trying to intimidate you, you have to match their energy or else they’ll sense your vulnerability and tear you apart.”

Couriway swallows. It doesn’t help the ache in his throat. “Where’d you learn that?”

The ghost of a smile flickers across Feinberg’s lips. “Poker.”

Couriway lets out a surprised laugh. “I didn’t take you for a gambling man. I have a friend I think you’d get along with real well.”

There’s that contemplative hum from Feinberg again. He studies his hands, balled into fists in his lap.

Couriway takes a chance. “What are you thinking about?”

Feinberg doesn’t look up. “Did I really collude with a supervillain?”

“Not really. You ‘colluded’ with Fruitberries to protect my cover from being blown.” Couriway shakes his head. “Your refusal to cooperate with law enforcement was you insisting I wasn’t dead to the EMTs and the police. Guess what? You were right.”

Feinberg’s head snaps up, meeting Couriway’s eyes. “Wait, the EMTs thought you were dead?”

Couriway knew Feinberg wouldn’t let that go. “Yes.”

Feinberg’s brow furrows. “And I didn’t? Why?”

“You… I wish I knew.” Couriway takes a seat at the edge of the bed. “I thought I was dead, too. Then I wasn’t. I don’t know how you did it, but it was you. I know it was you.”

“What makes you so sure? What did I do?”

Even as Couriway looks away, he can feel Feinberg’s gaze burning holes in the side of his skull. “I don’t know! I was dying to ask you, but I guess you don’t know either.”

In Couriway’s peripherals, Feinberg’s frown doesn’t resolve. “Okay, but what killed you? Or almost killed you?”

“Oh.” Couriway was hoping Feinberg wouldn’t ask that. He curses Nerdi for forcing them to talk about it. “I was poisoned.”

“Poisoned?” Feinberg echoes, disbelieving. “What kind of seventeenth century assassination attempt did you survive?”

Couriway huffs out a tired chuckle. “Fruitberries’s assassination attempt. He can secrete a unique kind of highly potent and deadly poison that resembles nothing like any other documented poison.”

Feinberg hums. “Maybe it’s not poison. Maybe it’s something else disguised as poison.”

Couriway follows Feinberg’s train of thought. “You’re thinking that’s how you healed me? Because I wasn’t actually poisoned?”

Feinberg nods. “I can see myself reversing the damage done by poison, but I can’t do anything to get it out of someone’s body. The only way I could heal it is if the damage was caused by something that doesn’t linger in the body. Like electricity or fire.”

Couriway considers this possibility, wondering why no one else thought of it before. “Fruitberries is notorious for lying.”

“Still, reversing full-scale organ failure… Can healers usually do that?”

Couriway considers lying. If Feinberg doesn’t know he’s special, maybe he won’t get any ideas. Maybe he will never assume the role of Fine again and they can go back to being ordinary roommates that aren’t hiding anything from each other.

A quick internet search could easily expose Couriway’s lie, and he would rather not keep secrets from Feinberg when he has so little information to begin with.

“Not without a lot of help.”

Feinberg mutters something to himself. Then, he looks up at Couriway. “The explanation of a lack of inhibitors doesn’t make sense to me. Adrenaline can make the brain ignore distress signals, but it doesn’t enhance your human capabilities. I can’t disobey the laws of nature by force of will. That’s like saying someone could fly if they were determined enough.”

Couriway nods sympathetically. “I agree, but that’s the best answer we have for what you can do.”

“So no one knows how my power is physically possible?” Feinberg hums again. It’s become a comfort for Couriway with how constant his roommate’s habit is. “I get why your friend was so strict with me. If I was working with a supervillain, I’d be a huge unknown variable in the equation. It makes sense he’d want me on his side, or at least locked up so I can’t get in the way.”

“But you’d never do something like that. You wouldn’t work with a supervillain unless it was to double-cross them.”

Feinberg’s brow creases. “You don’t know me.”

Couriway pretends not to be hurt by Feinberg’s callous remark. “Still. He shouldn’t treat you like that.”

“You don’t think the ends justify the means?”

“No,” Couriway answers, offended. “No, of course not. Who cares if you get an answer out of someone if they’re backed into a corner first? The rules are in place for a reason. If we allowed people to do anything they want as long as it had a good outcome, everybody would be dead before the good outcome could even happen. That kind of thinking breeds selfishness and carelessness. Not to mention the open door to corruption.”

Feinberg blinks at Couriway. “You know, I think I can see the two of us getting along.”

Couriway huffs. “We already do. You just don’t remember.”

The latter half of Couriway’s thought remains unsaid: you taught me that, Feinberg. Those are your words, not mine.

Feinberg laughs, but there’s a somber air about it. “Forgive me for complimenting you. It won’t happen again.”

“Hey, all you said was that we could get along well. That’s not a compliment, you egoist!”

Feinberg shrugs. “Sure it is. Gaining my approval isn’t easy.”

There’s another knock against the door. 

Couriway doesn’t bother asking Feinberg for permission to let the visitor in. If it’s Nerdi again, he’ll take care of it himself.

Luckily, the visitor this time isn’t Nerdi. 

“Fein,” Reignex says, brushing past Couriway and rushing to Feinberg’s side. He throws his arms around Feinberg’s shoulders.

To Couriway’s surprise, Feinberg doesn’t flinch. He leans forward, returning Reign’s embrace. “Reign. It’s so good to see you.”

Couriway has never heard Feinberg sound so relieved. The cold fingers of guilt squeeze his heart. Couriway fights back a shudder.

Reign sighs into Feinberg’s shoulder. “You scared the complete fucking shit out of me, you dick.”

Feinberg shrugs in Reign’s arms. “I wish I could apologize, but I can’t be sorry for something I don’t remember doing.”

“First of all, no you don’t. You never apologize for anything. Secondly…” Reign pulls away, meeting Feinberg’s eyes. “So, it’s true, then? You really don’t remember anything from the past few years?”

Couriway feels compelled to avert his gaze, as though he’s intruding on a private moment. Even so, he can’t bear to take his eyes off of his roommate, for fear Feinberg may disappear once he’s out of sight.

Feinberg shifts uncomfortably. “How did you know that?”

Reign gestures to Couriway. “Couri told me.”

When Feinberg’s eyes find him, Couriway fumbles for the right words. “I called him. Earlier. When I left. I hope that’s okay.”

“Thank you.” Feinberg smiles so softly that Couriway must be seeing things.

Couriway returns Feinberg’s smile, but it’s mostly forced. “Sure. Yeah.”

Couriway can’t shake the feeling that he shouldn’t be here. Reign is Feinberg’s friend. They go way back. 

Couriway is nobody, at least as far as Feinberg is concerned. They don’t know each other. Not anymore.

Couriway is wracking his brain for a way to quietly slip out, trying his darndest not to eavesdrop, when Reign calls his name. 

“Couri,” Reign says, urgently, as though he’d already called for Couriway a few times. “Fein says you were poisoned?”

“Oh.” Couriway tears his eyes from the floor, reluctantly meeting Reign’s. “Yeah. Something like that.”

“By Fruitberries? The supervillian?”

Couriway doesn’t like where this is going. “Yeah.”

“The same poison that kills people in minutes?”

Couriway swallows the groan building in his throat. “I think so. I was kind of out of it.”

“Minutes?” Feinberg cuts in, bewildered. “And I managed to neutralize it? And save your dying organs? Are you sure you aren’t lying to make me feel better?”

“I’m dead serious,” Couriway says, offended that Feinberg would consider himself anything less than extraordinary. “Ask anybody there. Fulham, Nerdi, Rad, the first responders. They’d all tell you the same thing. You appeared to heal me, passed out, and then seconds later, I woke up from being dead.”

Feinberg scoffs in disbelief. “There’s no way you were actually dead. Mechanics can’t fix a car smashed into a million pieces and healers can’t heal something that’s not alive.”

“Maybe the average healer can’t.” Couriway takes an experimental step forward. “But you could.”

Feinberg glances at Reign. Then he looks back at Couriway. “You’re serious? Healers who have trained their whole lives can’t do something that I, some dude who has barely used his power, can?”

Couriway nods. “I wouldn’t believe it either, if I hadn’t experienced it myself.”

“That’s crazy. You’re crazy. There’s no way I did what you’re describing. You have to be missing something.” The frustration in Feinberg’s voice betrays the words he left unsaid: I have to be missing something. 

For an analytical man like Feinberg, losing his memory is one of the worst things that could happen to him.

“It’s not like you waved your hand and made everything all better,” Couriway replies. “Did you hear what Nerdi said earlier? You just about sacrificed your life for mine. You essentially traded places with me, only without the poison in your veins. I was still weak for a few days. Nobody got off scott-free.”

“That doesn’t sound like me.” Feinberg’s voice is small. “I would never die for someone. I’m too selfish.”

“He what?” Reign’s gaze cuts to Couriway, sharp as a razorblade. “Nobody thought to tell me that little nugget of information?”

“It’s technically classified,” Couriway squeaks. 

“I’m his best friend.” Reign places extra emphasis on the word best, intent on breaking Couriway’s heart.

Despite his best efforts, Couriway’s throat threatens to close. “I wanted Fein to be the one to tell you, but I never thought he wouldn’t remember.”

Reign gestures to Feinberg. “I almost lost two of my friends in one night, and no one told me?” 

“I’m sorry.”

Couriway and Reign turn to stare at Feinberg, whose words sound so timid, so quiet, and so remarkably wrong that Couriway thinks he may be dreaming. 

“Why are you apologizing?” Reign demands, leftover anger sparking from his tongue. 

Feinberg flinches. He flinches mere moments after staring down the most terrifying man Couriway has ever known barring supervillains without so much as blinking. 

Then that blip in Feinberg’s composure is gone, abruptly as it appeared.

“Obviously, this is my fault,” Feinberg says, his tone flat and methodical as a professor explaining a formula for the nth time. “If I hadn’t overestimated my limits, I wouldn’t have ended up here, and you two wouldn’t be arguing with each other.”

Reign sighs shortly. “Feinberg, you don’t even know what happened, how are you blaming yourself right now?”

Feinberg shrugs. “I’m not about to blame Couriway for getting poisoned, and I’m not going to blame you for being mad that he didn’t tell you about the aforementioned poisoning.”

“Stop using my full government name,” Couriway mutters. “Call me Couri.”

Not only is it embarrassing to be referred to by his full name, it’s extra jarring when it’s Feinberg saying his name like that. Even when they first met, Couriway can’t recall a time Feinberg ever called him Couriway.

It feels wrong. Everything about the man in front of Couriway is off, and yet hauntingly familiar. Like a nostalgic aroma he can’t quite place. 

“Anyway,” Couriway forces himself out of his head. “The only person to blame is Fruitberries.”

“Sure,” Feinberg agrees, his flippant tone betraying the fact that he does not agree. He opens his mouth to say something else, but a yawn interrupts him. It takes him a few seconds to open his eyes afterward. 

“Right,” Couriway says. “You must be tired after the day you’ve had. Should I let you get some sleep?”

Reign nods. “Yeah. After you get out of here, do you wanna stay at my place for the time being? It would probably be better for you to stay somewhere familiar. No offense, Couri.”

Feinberg glances at Couriway, his gaze calculating. Is he trying to discern if Couriway approves of the idea? Not that it matters. Feinberg is a grown man. He can make his own choices. 

Feinberg hums in agreement. “Yeah. Sure. You still live in the place your parents picked out?”

Reign appears to bristle, but Couriway blinks and his posture returns to normal. “Yeah. It’s not far from your apartment with Couri, actually. It’s walking distance, so you don’t need to rely on one of us to drive you if you want to visit.”

Feinberg shuts his eyes, slumping against the pillow behind him. “Alright. Thanks.”

Couriway stands, stretching out his tense legs. “I’ll be back before you leave tomorrow to get a list of the things you may wanna have from our place. I’ll bring them over after you’re settled in.”

Reign smiles softly as Feinberg begins to fall asleep mid-conversation, as easily as he always has. That man has a remarkable talent for slacking off.

Wordlessly, Reign crosses the room and opens the door, careful not to make any noise, and holds it for Couriway to leave first. Reign follows after Couriway steps into the hallway, then shuts the door with the same amount of care as he opened it. 

“This is going to be… something.” Reign breathes once the latch clicks shut. “Are you good, bro? You looked pretty out of it back there.”

Couriway nods, ignoring the slight head rush it spurs on. “Yeah. Just tired.”

Reign frowns, his gaze judicious. He doesn’t believe Couriway.

Couriway is too exhausted to care.

Couriway didn’t show up. 

He didn’t arrive at the hospital like he promised. He didn’t answer his phone when Reign called him.

“He’s probably busy,” Reign had said, clearly nervous but trying to make sure Feinberg didn't freak out. “Let’s go. I’ll text him that we’re going to my place and he can meet us there.”

When Feinberg opened the door to Reign’s apartment, it looked exactly how he remembered it. Reign was right; it was a good idea to go somewhere Feinberg recognized. Feinberg hadn’t realized how on edge he’d been until he was able to relax and let his guard down. 

Reign left Feinberg in the living room with a promise that he’d return as soon as he got his guest bedroom ready. 

Feinberg flopped on Reign’s couch, too weary to do much else, and quickly found himself fishing for his cell phone.

That’s what led him to now, with Feinberg staring down Couriway’s contact information.

Couriway wasn’t lying when he said he was Feinberg’s emergency contact. In bold red letters, Couriway’s name is listed with an asterisk next to it, right above Reign’s name, which sports the same red text and asterisk. 

It’s strange to see two names in Feinberg’s contact list written in that striking red. For a long time, it was just Reign. 

Logically, Feinberg knows it makes sense. If anyone needs to be aware of an emergency involving Feinberg, it’s the person he lives with. 

As the letters blur together before Feinberg’s eyes, Feinberg can’t help but feel there’s more to it than that. 

Feinberg views his emergency contacts as people he trusts with his life. He doesn’t trust just anyone with his life. Sharing a living space isn’t nearly enough to cut it.

How important was Couriway to Feinberg?

How important is Feinberg to Couriway?

What was their relationship like before Feinberg forgot about it? It must have been close, because Feinberg has a hunch that Couriway isn’t the type of person to cry often, yet he cried when Feinberg forgot about him.

Feinberg has never meant that much to anyone other than Reign. Or his parents. 

Feinberg taps the message icon next to Couriway’s name. Their text history fills the screen.

Feinberg scrolls up. Most of their exchanges are mundane, consisting of normal things like hey, I’m going to be home late. I have extra work I need to finish up, or I’m at the store, do you want anything?

One thing catches Feinberg’s attention, so out of place among the casual conversation. 

A series of text messages from Couriway sent around midnight on the fifteenth of May. 

i’m sorry

i didn’t mean it

please come back

Following the messages is a record of a phone call from Feinberg’s side that lasted a whopping fifteen seconds. 

The next messages after the phone call are dated from June.

There were two weeks when Couriway and Feinberg didn’t text each other at all, which happened to coincide with a strange interaction that suggested Couriway said something to hurt Feinberg’s feelings. 

Feinberg may be the type to give people the cold shoulder, but Couriway not messaging Feinberg at all during that time is bizarre. 

Dread creeps up Feinberg’s spine as his thumbs type out a message independent of his brain. 

where are you?