Chapter Text
After establishing Breakthrough as a superhero team specialized in gathering and distributing information, Victoria was no stranger to being approached for help finding things. Items, data, locations, people, etc. There were lots of reasons that superheroes might need to find something or someone, and the whole point of Breakthrough was to help with that.
Victoria was also no stranger to civilians asking for help. In retrospect, she realized that, as Glory Girl, she had been rather uncomplicated with how she approached being a superhero. A younger her was entirely focused on small problems in front of her rather than larger problems on the horizon. So a civilian asking for help for relatively minor things took up a rather large portion of her superhero activities.
She had never abandoned that part of being a superhero, and she made a careful effort to never reject someone who asked for help, even if all she did was point them in the direction of someone better suited to helping them than she was. However, having civilians approach Breakthrough rather than Victoria or Antares was a rather new experience.
A man and a woman had shown up at the Breakthrough office to ask for help finding their daughter. Victoria’s first instinct was to simply point them towards the police, but the pained desperation in the couple’s eyes made her pause. So she invited them in to tell the whole story.
“Sarah ran away from home,” the woman, June Livsey, said. “At first, we thought she’d only be gone a few hours before coming home. But then days went by. And then weeks. We didn’t hear anything from her.”
“Did you file a missing person report?” Victoria asked. Sometimes, people dealing with stressful situations didn’t follow the proper procedures. On account of the stress and all.
“We did, but…” June said.
“Sarah had powers,” her husband, Fred, said. “We’re not sure exactly what, but she would just…know things sometimes.”
“Thinker,” Victoria said with a nod. Coming to Breakthrough made more sense now. “Even low-level Thinkers can know a surprising amount, and high-level Thinkers seem to know almost everything. It can also be very stressful for a new cape to suddenly know things like that. That might be why she ran. I don’t want to worry you too much, but the problem is that Thinkers are also just as physically vulnerable as any regular person, so they are a popular target for villains to snatch up. That might have happened to Sarah.”
“That’s what we were worried about,” Fred said. “After she ran, we did some research, and we’ve been very worried.” His face was stoic, but he wrung his hands so hard as he spoke that the knuckles turned white.
“How long ago did she run?” Victoria asked. “You said it’s been weeks.”
“Five years,” June said.
Victoria blinked a few times. Then, she blinked again. “That's…before Gold Morning. There are a lot of people who didn’t make it through that. That’s even assuming she lasted the three years before that on her own.”
Fred and June nodded. “We know,” June said. “We had mostly given up hope. Then, after everything, when everyone started rebuilding, we put out announcements that we were alive. Just in case, you know. But, we didn’t hear anything, so we figured she didn’t make it.”
“They why…”
“A few weeks ago,” Fred said, “we opened a charity. It’s a support system for children and teens going through rough patches.”
“We named it after our children,” June said, “Reggie and Sarah. Reggie had…killed himself shortly before Sarah left.” She paused slightly before she continued softly, “Sarah was the one who found him.”
Victoria winced. That certainly sounded like a trigger event. A young girl, wondering why her brother would do that, suddenly cursed with the power to know exactly why.
“We thought our children were dead,” Fred said, “but we wanted to put their names behind our efforts to help give other children a better chance.”
“That’s when we got this.” June pulled a piece of paper, a letter, out of her purse and handed it to Victoria.
Victoria started to unfold it and then paused. “Do you mind if I…” At their nods, Victoria unfolded the note and read.
Dear Fucking Failures of Parents,
How fucking DARE you! You don’t even deserve to say his name. It’s your fault that Reggie is dead. If you hadn’t been such terrible parents, he’d still be alive. Your overbearing expectations and pressure on him to be perfect killed your son. Maybe, instead of fucking up more kids just like him, you should take your self-righteous “charity” and shove it up your ass.
Sincerely,
Go Fuck Yourselves
“We think it’s Sarah,” June said.
“That certainly fits,” Victoria admitted. “You can’t think of anyone else who might have been close enough to Reggie to write this?”
“No one who wouldn’t also be blaming us for Sarah’s death,” Fred said. “After she left, we spent some time asking why. It took some time, but we realized…she’s right. We killed our son.” His face was still impassive, but Victoria could see the glisten of tears in his eyes.
“We wanted him to take over Fred’s real estate business one day,” June said. “So we encouraged him to do well in school, make friends with the right people who could be business contacts, get experience with the company early on, etc. We just didn’t realize until later that we pushed too hard. That it was too much for him. Reggie needed space to be a kid, and we didn’t give him that.”
“After he…after he died,” Fred said, “I think we just pushed all of those expectations onto Sarah. Especially after realizing how helpful her power was for market research and price estimates. We thought that having her dive into the business would help her heal, but instead…”
“Instead,” June said, “we started doing the exact same thing to her that killed Reggie. I think she realized that. That’s why she ran. That’s why she blames us.”
“If she’s kept an eye on you this whole time,” Victoria said slowly, “and has specifically avoided letting you know she’s alive, she might not want to be found.”
“We know,” Own said. “But I’ll be damned if this turns into one of those stupid ‘both of them were waiting for the other to reach out’ dramas. If she doesn’t want to talk, I get it. But we have to try. We have to try to apologize.”
“We have a photo of her, if that will help you find her,” June said. “She’ll be older now, but if you can track her down…”
June pulled a tattered photo out of her purse and handed it to Victoria. The photo had two children hugging each other as they smiled at the camera. Victoria examined the photo for a moment before handing it back with promises that she would be in touch if Breakthrough found anything or if they needed any additional information. But Victoria knew that she wouldn’t be asking for more details about Sarah because the photo clearly showed a younger, happier, and distinctly less world-weary Tattletale.