Chapter Text
Chicago was a beautiful city, but not in the thick of winter, when it hadn’t snowed in years but the city managed to be as disgusting as possible, ice burdening at the edges of rooftops and signs warning pedestrians of its falling possibility. Feinberg huffed out his angry clouds of breath and curled his fingers in his jacket, the pads of his fingers freezing as they dug into his palms. The noises of the city filtered through his thick hood, sounds he couldn’t block out, because his earbuds were broken and the man who made them was dead, and he was late to serve coffee to a bunch of entitled assholes who never said thank you and never tipped enough.
He was late. It was seven PM and he was late to run the store until midnight, because the owner always liked it open late during finals season, when exhausted college students would trickle in and out in various states of disarray and mental breakdown.
When he pushed in the door, the owner’s eyes locked on him but said nothing. In the cacophony of coffee, the day slipped by him, and he paid everything no more mind than it needed from him. Routine wrapped around him: it was time to leave.
Tomorrow, he would wake in the early cold of the afternoon, trudge all the way to the store, and then leave in early morning, fall asleep again, and pretend like this routine was calming, sanctuary.
Feinberg froze as still as the air with his foot hovering over icy ground that had quickly refrozen. The noise of a fight clattered down the alleyway, and Fein, a well-trained machine, tensed his fits and held his breath to let his eyes adjust. Around him, people pushed, annoyed, but he could see what they couldn’t, and quickly turned down the alleyway, his breath puffing in the air that had suddenly grown significantly colder.
Something hit his side and he went flying into the wall, knee crunching against the concrete with a dull cracking thud that sent quivers of electricity up through his body, spiking out from his leg in wild patterns that made his head ache. Suddenly, the feeling of the cold was drowned out by the noise of the pain.
“Fuck,” he hissed.
“You got in my fucking way!” shouted the hero, who couldn’t have been more than 19, his hair a piercing arctic blue. “Why the fuck did you get in my way?”
Another wave of cold gripped him and he stood, suddenly able to as it numbed the wild and unrestrained pain that hovered through his mind. “Why the fuck,” Feinberg hissed, “were you putting me in your way?”
It was something that would have resonated more with the old heroes, the people who relied entirely on honor and trust between each other, the people who, like his oldest friends, would never put another friend in the line of danger. Never intentionally. Fein bit into his cheek until it bled.
“I know you. I know you,” said the boy. “You’re Feinberg.”
Fein winced, because this was the part that always came next, the part in which they said that he was the story that they told to keep people from overusing their powers. He was the name on the statues of the tragedy in which their beloved hero stood, his wings curled around himself and the innocent, and Fein, he was the storm to be sheltered from.
He shoved his hands into his pockets and turned away. The assailant, whoever they were, was long gone, the sound of their footsteps echoing in the darkness, though Fein saw nothing. “Yeah, I am,” he said. “You lost your guy.”
“Who gives a shit, you’re Feinberg,” he replied. “We’ve been looking for you for months.”
Fein whipped his head around to stare at him. He’d never seen this goddamn kid a goddamn day in his goddamn life, and he certainly wasn’t about to start. His knee was probably broken, and his shoulder didn’t seem any better. “I don’t care,” he said.
“Too bad.” Fein felt an arm wrap around his shoulder and he hissed.
“Don’t touch me,” he said, and the energy boiled within him. Slipping his hands into his pockets, he tried to think of only the wind, just focus on one sensation, as though the others would politely shuffle their way out of his crowded mind.
“We want you to work for us. My employers do. The new age, you know? They want some familiar faces. They know you’re the best to ever play the game, right?” His voice was almost teasing, too lighthearted. Fein stared at him, gritted his teeth.
“Fuck off,” he spat.
All at once, he was at the wall again, on the ground, the burst of movement and power so fast that he couldn’t even tell it was happening until he was winded, pressed against the alley’s brick flooring and the concrete of the wall, his breath spasming out of him.
The kid stood above him, blue hair ringed by a streetlamp, and then he crouched, grinning out of one side of his mouth. “It’s been a long time since you fought like that, right?” he asked.
Fein coughed, his ribs aching. His knuckles felt rough when he tried to push himself up, and the man across from him smiled wider. “Listen,” he said. “I think we got off on the wrong foot.” He nudged Fein’s knee, which was definitelybroken, and Fein gasped at the hot pain that seared up his nerves, the exact shape of the electrical signal taking shape in his mind, like riding a bike, something he couldn’t forget even if he tried to.
“They want you, you know,” he continued. “The agency. You should consider it. Or at least get out of the way next time. They’re going to think you’re a vigilante.”
This kid.
Fein tried to push himself to his feet, his whole body sparking with energy and pain, the sensations of the bitter cold, the people talking, the sirens, the louder sirens, the noise, the noise, the noise—
He fumbled and pulled the cuffs from his pocket and locked them around his wrists, breathing in the relief of no longer having to hold back one of those devastating shocks that had him declared too dangerous.
When he looked up, the blue-haired boy was gone, and the dizzying rush of energy had barely cleared him, and the only thing in his mind was that they were right, he was too dangerous, and that was why he was dead, and then, leaving his jacket so the cold stung his bare arms, Fein walked home as quickly as he could, ignoring the agony and limping lopsidedly down the icy street.
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The bell rang and Feinberg sat bolt upright, blinking all the sleep from his eyes as the string bean of a boy beside him snickered, his arms crossed over his chest. Feinberg kicked him, and in response, Lewis kicked him back, sticking out his tongue. It wasn’t his fault—and they were both up to the asscrack of dawn anyway, as young adults were prone to do—but he was going to take the shit from it anyway.
“Where’s lunch?” Feinberg grunted as soon as they escaped from the instructor and her watchful gaze, as though she was going to call him Matthew again and make everyone giggle at him later for that story.
“Where do you think lunch is?” Lewis replied, bumping him with his shoulder as though it would actually move him anywhere.
Feinberg groaned. “Someday he’s gonna get sick of that fucking place,” he said, but they both slipped down the hall that led to the exit rather than the cafeteria, because Couriway didn’t like the sharp cheddar and ham they made their sandwiches with, and he insisted their spinach was wrong, so every day rain or shine, he insisted that he and his three friends trudge half a mile to a sandwich shop that ‘did it right.’
Poundcake would be with him already, because he and Couri were a year above the two of them, and had already picked a name and a costume and were on amateur assignment. Feinberg was technically supposed to be 4 years below the lot of them, but, well, as Lewis said, ‘prodigy is gonna prodigy.’
And so together, they ducked into the sandwich shop and slid into the booth they always sat in, the one in the back that let both Fein and Couri see the door, because they cared about watching the people who would walk in and Poundy and Lewis did not. Their sandwiches were sitting on the table already, because, though Fein complained, he, too, would always get the same thing, and Lewis would eat pretty much anything that wasn’t too spicy, which Poundy always snickered at him about.
“Infrastructure is killing me,” Fein complained. “Why do we even have to—like who cares about it. Like who cares. I’m not going to knock any buildings over. Leave that for like—a physical class.”
“Energy’s more dangerous,” Poundy retorted. He wasn’t even a physical class—his power was all about disarming, not in the sense of removing a weapon, but of taking down a person’s mental guard. To this day, Fein was half-sure that the only reason he was friends with these fools in the first place was because Poundy had taken a bet that he could be the first person to make the sulking 18-year-old in the back of the room talk, and then failed miserably when Lewis asked him about statistics for the express purpose of gambling later.
“Everyone can knock down a building if they hit it in the wrong spot,” said Couriway. “Especially you, Lightning Hands.”
Feinberg stuck out his tongue at him. “You don’t get to talk. You’re going to knock out some support beam on accident.” The extremely obvious golden wings that never quite fit in the booth and therefore were splayed across the very edge of the table, characteristic of Couri’s indignant anger, puffed up as he sat more upright and narrowed his eyes at him.
“I’ve never,” he said, scandalized.
“Just whack me for fun then, do you?” Lewis protested.
“Not for fun. You deserve it,” Couri replied. “Count your concussion-free days.”
Feinberg took a sip of the soda that was waiting for him and nearly spit it out. “This is, like, fucking Sprite,” he bemoaned.
“Deal with it,” Couri scoffed.
“Oh, yeah, and you wouldn’t throw up if you got a ham sandwich,” Fein snipped.
Couri rolled his eyes fondly and grabbed his notebook from the other side of the table, snatching it right out of Poundy’s hands.
For a dual class hero—one born with a physical difference and an energy-based power—he was projected to rank low. Not because he was bad at anything, but because he was careful and methodical. Never chasing speed, he cared much more about limiting damage to the buildings and civilians around him, and he had quickly become a favorite among both parents and children for his ability to make anyone feel safe and at ease.
Fein was not as selfless—the projected rank for him was Diamond II and climbing, and he checked it nearly every morning. Even now, he itched to—just to see the number quietly inch forwards, justifying all the work he had been desperately pushing into his schedule. Maybe Infrastrcutrue wasn’t his strongest class (as though Couri wouldn’t study with him or force him to study alone until, like every other class that had given him trouble, he passed with flying colors), but when it came to Simulation, he was the student nobody ever wanted to go against, and it was for good reason.
“Here,” Couri said, perfectly on cue. He pushed his notebook into Fein’s hands, flipped to the second section. “Copy them down, it’ll help you remember.”
Fein groaned. “I don’t want to study architecture,” he mumbled.
“It’s not architecture, it’s engineering,” Couri snickered and pointed at Lewis, “otherwise he wouldn’t have an A in it.”
For that remark, Couri earned a pickle slice to the forehead.
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The cats swarmed him when he opened the door and he buried his face in their fur, scooping them up to his chest. He had never named any of them, but he could’ve recognized them out of dozens from the same pattern. They crawled over his back, meowing for food and rubbing against his chest and hands for soft pets that he quickly obliged them with. It had started years before, long enough that he had been alive for part of it, and laughed at him when he said: “Are you trying to get every cat in the city?”
Now, there were dozens more, slipping in and out of his apartment at all hours of the day, and he had spent most of his money on getting them food and toys and beds, and stuffed what was once his room full of their things, and now he slept on his back on the rug in the living room, because there was a second bed in the apartment but he was never going to use it.
The sweet black one that was a little bit too small perched on Fein’s knee and when he reached for her, she started to purr even before she rubbed her head into his hand. Too small and too sweet, she was easily his favorite, and as he stood to go get himself something to eat and nearly fell over at the sharp stab of pain in his leg, she meowed at him. “Yeah,” he sighed to himself. Then he picked up his phone, which was always cracked, and sent out the call.
It had been a long time since he talked to most of the people who had once been his dearest friends, and so in the shattered pieces of what had once been a treasured life, he had found some worth in making friends with other lost heroes who had known his reputation but not him.
Silverr answered right away: “Yeah?” he asked.
“I broke my knee,” Fein grunted. “Well—no. Some fucking asshole broke my knee. Little guy. Blue hair.”
Silverr sighed. “Yeah, I’ll be over,” he replied. “You’ve been dealing with the new ones too, huh?”
Fein furrowed his brow. “New ones?”
“The heroes. They were by earlier. Broke my fucking window.” Now, with the added context, Fein could place the reason why he could hear people rustling, the sirens outside. “Put something up, but I’ve gotta take the plants home.”
“I’ll come by. You fix my knee, I’ll help you,” replied Fein. It wasn’t like he had anything better than limping agonizingly down the street to do, and so, though the cats clung to his legs, he forced himself back out into the painful cold.
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For the first year of his advanced schooling, Feinberg did not speak unless called directly upon and spent his days drinking absurd amounts of caffeine and passing his classes, the lowest grade of which was 96.7%. He was not supposed to be here this young, which everyone seemed fond of reminding him, either with their direct words or those glances towards him. He was big and tall, certainly the size of a 20-year-old, but nothing like the rest of them, he didn’t carry power in his bones.
They were going to start making him run in the morning for his Baseline Fitness class, which was both a graduation requirement and an employment requirement at any decent agency, and so he had already bought new shoes (as opposed to the ones that he usually wore, which he had been walking on for 6 years, and he had just now realized that was less impressive and more disturbingly sad). They were sitting in his backpack now, which he nudged to the side. It was stuffed full and too heavy, and for the first time in his life, Feinberg missed high school.
The running started the same week as the tournament for the graduating students, and Feinberg found himself running on a treadmill, numbers the only thing in his head to keep him company. He had Statistics after this, after all, in which a gangly 21-year-old was going to be very not discreetly copying off of his work and try to make conversation with him, and Fein would ignore him as best as he could, unless he was asking a question, in which case—the numbers came easily to him. He could talk about numbers for hours.
It was this way that the man, whose name Feinberg still hadn’t asked, invited him to lunch off-campus with his friends, of which he then talked about, and Fein didn’t even remember their names. Regardless. This guy wasn’t intimidating, and Fein said yes, if only because by the end of it, he was sure that this stranger would never talk to him again, and never want to.
The run ended and when Fein stepped off the treadmill trying his best not to feel like a fish flopping on the deck of a boat, someone was looking at him with a curious expression, staring, really, big eyes magnified by thick glasses most accurately compared to a funhouse mirror. Fein took a drink of water and stared right back, looking right through his eyes and staring instead at the bridge of his nose.
“What do you want?” he demanded.
“You’re the numbers kid from Lewis’ stats class,” he replied. “Right? The pink shirt? That’s what he said.”
Feinberg glared. “Yeah, maybe,” he said. He scooped up his bag and threw it over his shoulder. “What about it?”
The man laughed under his breath as he pulled his hair out of his face with the dorkiest little headband Feinberg had ever seen in his life. “I’ll see you tomorrow!”
Fein stared at him. Then he turned away and walked out of the gym without saying another word, and it wasn’t until the next day, when Fein went to lunch and found him sitting at the table with lettuce, somehow, in his hair, laughing louder than anyone Fein had ever heard, and he waved him over beaming, that Fein found the urge within him to smile with half of his mouth and wave a half-hearted greeting back to him.
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Hauling the boxes into the back of the truck, Fein’s knee was still too warm, run through with all that absurd life energy that was brimming at Silverr’s fingertips. He’d laughed when Fein said it was broken, because he sucked and Fein hated him, and told him it was just a bad bruise, but he’d healed him all the same. “They ask you if you want a job too?” Fein asked him.
Silverr shook his head, breath puffing out of him even through his thick knit scarf. Fein had one that was just as mismatched, but he had forgotten it at home in his haste. He supposed he could just steal another one from Silverr’s wall, because Reign, who always needed something to do while sitting, had kept the hobby of knitting for a very long time. “No. Wouldn’t take it. You?”
“Yeah,” Fein said. “Same little shit who beat me up.”
“That’s Infume,” Silverr replied. Fein turned and glared at him. “What? I keep up.” They hoisted a particularly heavy box, and then stood there, breathing heavily as traffic and people swarmed around them, the noise startling and almost deafening.
“I’m thinking about it,” he replied. Not because he was actually considering it, but because he wanted someone else to tell him that he was crazy if he was even thinking about it.
Silverr shrugged. “I dunno. Could be good for you,” he said. “Getting back into the industry.”
Feinberg didn’t say anything and stared at the boxes and did not ask: what if I kill someone again? The earbud in his right ear started buzzing and he took it out, rubbed it between his fingers. The precise work of someone who was careful about everyone except who he kept in his company.
Fein should not have been there.
“It’s not a good industry for me,” he said.
Silverr was already moving to the next box. He had at least found some kind of passion to channel himself into, but what in the world was there for something like him and the way he tore all the way through everything he loved? He wasn’t the kind of hero that got to rebuild everything after it fell apart.
They loaded the rest of the truck, and then Fein sat in the passenger seat while he drove, listening to pop music as the drivers around them held conversations with their children, or listened to music, or, it didn’t matter—the noise was a swarm of insects in his mind, and he could not gather the strength to shake it loose.
Though his knee did not ache any longer, Silverr dropped him off at his apartment building, and Fein walked all the way up the stairs tiredly.
Standing in front of his door, smug, was that hero—Infume. The air carried a deathly chill around him, and when Fein exhaled next his breath fogged up his own glasses. They were just going to follow him until he caved, weren’t they?
“You think it over, yet?” Infume asked. The annoyance hovering in his voice proved one thing to Fein: he was sent here to pester him, and he expected Fein to say no.
“I’ll do it,” Fein replied.
He could not place why he said it, just that he had. There was no reason, or maybe there were thousands. Or maybe, he just wanted to crawl on top of the quilt on his best friend’s perpetually empty bed and pretend like he, laying on his back and staring up at the spinning fan slowly turning on the ceiling, could still hear him complaining about the latest annoying vigilante or villain that was bothering him at their work.
Couri wouldn’t have liked the way the industry changed. It was still too formulaic. Ignored safety. Encouraged—
“You’ll do it?” Infume replied. “Couldn’t you have said that earlier? Saved me the trip?”
Fein just stared at him, but not into his eyes, instead picking the bridge of his nose, a trick that he had learned a long time ago, to make the person think that he was, although he could never handle the weight of it, nor the noise–or, what felt like noise.
Infume left. Fein slipped into his apartment, fed his cats, and rubbed the soft fabric of the quilt between his fingers. The design, which he had worked tirelessly on with Reign, was supposed to look like wings. It did not.
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Infume was standing in the dead center of his kitchen when Fein walked out into it, eating one of the stale donuts that Fein had forgotten to throw away. “You sleep late,” he said. It was two in the afternoon, and Feinberg did not have the energy to complain about his presence, nor did he care enough to be scared. What was Infume going to do, kill him? Good riddance, really.
“Happens when you work a late shift,” Fein grunted. “What do you want?”
“It’s your briefing day. Come on.” Infume grinned as he threw something Fein didn’t even realize he was holding. “Put on the suit, let’s go.”
“What?” Fein replied, catching it.
“You’re not walking in looking like that,” Infume sneered.
“Says the kid in a hoodie and jeans.”
“It’s streetwear. For my job. My cover,” Infume replied. “What’s your excuse.”
“They need me more than I need them,” Fein scoffed. Still, he held up the hanger, examined the suit, and sighed. “I won’t fit in this.”
“The fuck do you mean—it’s literally measured off of your own outfit,” Infume replied.
“Yeah. You lose weight when you stop eating and all the muscles you got from sprinting around a fucking city at top speed go away.” Fein crossed his arms. “It’ll look dumb.”
“You already look dumb. Put it on.”
The suit did not fit and neither did his good shoes when he slipped them on, and he crossed his arms over his chest and tried to ignore the way the shoulders felt like they were slipping off of his shoulders.
In the backseat of a taxi, after Fein remarked that he did think Infume looked too young to drive, he was unceremoniously thrown a file that he had to summon old skills to try and read without feeling like he wanted to fall fast asleep and scream. The words printed in neat lettering across the page were familiar, but not enough. He scattered his gaze over them and picked out the pieces of information that he needed.
They called her the Dragon. She had become an issue four years ago. First across the East Coast, then a break, then she had shown up in Chicago. The official charge was “Interfering with Hero Business,” which Fein knew from experience was bullshit for “being a pain in the ass,” given that he’d been slapped with it several times since he’d hung up his rank and stepped down. Sometimes, there weren’t people when there needed to be, where there needed to be.
She was going to be killed. Of course, they didn’t have ranks anymore, but Fein could guess she’d be high up, even if it was entirely based on the power itself. Anyone threatened to death was deadly themselves.
Anyone threatened to death via him was someone truly, truly evil.
“You read it?” Infume asked.
“Sorry?”
“Have you read it?” Infume demanded again.
“Yeah, like, some—” Fein huffed. “You expect me to memorize an entire file on some woman? It’s been like, five minutes.”
“Twenty.” Infume picked at his nails and Fein wrinkled his nose at him.
“I’d like to see you read,” he grumbled. The car was no longer moving, and yet the engine was still humming, he could feel it in his chest. His ears felt startlingly empty, but there would be no use in the headphones—he’d left them at home, anyway. This place was sure to have metal detectors, and he wasn’t going to fuck up his first chance at this in a long time.
Maybe he wanted to. Maybe that was why he had left Couri’s last gift to him wilting in a drawer—because without some kind of backup, some kind of restraint on his power, it would all blow up, and they’d realize that everyone else was right when they decided he was a monster undeserving of a title.
“Come on,” Infume grumbled. “We’re going up.” He opened the door lazily, fumbling with the latch as though he hadn’t done that before. Spoiled brat probably had everyone open everything for him. This was their new golden boy, Fein was sure of it.
The air bit them for only a moment, standing at the feet of a building that reached high into the clouds, and Fein watched as Infume declaritively strode into the lobby, then he followed behind him.
He parted the sea of heroes that streamed past them as they wove through hallways, up an elevator that conspicuously emptied, and down a final passageway, off of which offices were—
Nerdi.
Fein whipped his head around and froze, catching sight of his old friend. Couri’s old friend. He had earned his name—he and Fein talked numbers, and often. He could process numbers as quickly as they were read to him, so fast Fein couldn’t keep up—of course, it was a superpower—
“You have somewhere to be?” Infume snarked. And just like that, Nerdi was gone, his shoulder practically pressed against the wall to get away from them.
“What?” Fein replied.
Infume rolled his eyes. “His office’s down the hall. Keep moving.” And Fein could do nothing but follow him, because as stubborn as he was, he was best at following orders. As the door opened and Infume gestured him into the office, Fein’s mind still buzzed with recognition, Nerdi’s familiarly damp hair accompanied by the wide berth he had taken past him in the hallway. The frequent loathing of all the people he had loved once.
The door shut behind him, and he looked to find who he assumed was his new boss waiting for him, a thick pair of square glasses sitting on his nose. “You’re the help?” he immediately snorted in a thick accent Fein couldn’t place off the top of his head.
Fein froze, turned around. Infume shrugged. “You said you needed someone good,” he replied and tilted his head towards Fein. “He used to be the best.”
Fein was quiet.
“Does he even know—”
“He knows enough. He read the file.” Infume had that tone to his voice that Fein knew well—of a kid about to rank up. This was his qualifying assignment—if they still had those.
“He’s not going to give you Netherite just because you brought him a shit hero,” Fein snorted. Infume narrowed his eyes.
“What the hell are you talking about?” he demanded. “I’m already Netherite.”
“Impossible,” Fein scoffed. “You can’t qualify until 20.”
“Not how it works anymore,” replied the man behind the desk. He stood up, tilting his head. “Your highest potential rank is determined upon entry to the agency.”
Feinberg stared at him. “And how exactly…?”
“The calculator,” Infume replied. “Measures your power, something like that. Ranks you instantly. Saves a bunch of time, mistakes.”
The man raised his chin, an odd sort of pride dawning on his face, the kind of stubborn ego Fein knew best from the mirror. “No assessments,” he said. “No civilian risk. No danger.”
“But that’s stupid,” Fein snapped. “What about thinking on your feet, or, or actual instinct, like skill—how are we measuring that? It’s just how strong you are? What the hell kind of ranking system is that?”
“Careful, Feinberg,” said the man with an odd expression on his face. “You’re starting to sound like your target.”
Fein gritted his teeth and the words boiled in his throat anyway, and it was then he felt another presence in the room, the door creaking open.
“Give him a break,” said a familiar voice. “He hasn’t been here in a long time.”
It was Nerdi, his eyes locked firmly far away from Fein, but still distinctly defending him as he peeked into the room. “He’ll understand when we get more into things. He knows when someone is dangerous.”
The room was silent for a long while, and Fein wanted to pull Nerdi aside and ask so many buzzing questions but they died in his throat and he squeezed his eyes shut instead. “I have the report,” Nerdi said.
“You know where to leave it,” was the only reply he got, and still, Nerdi waited a moment, eyes burning into the back of Fein’s neck, before he shut the door again. Made himself scarce.
“Sorry,” Fein grunted. Appeased, or something like it, the man reached into a drawer of his desk and took something out, placing it, a strangely soft dark gray cube, in his hands. Fein could feel the energy seething within it, and he shuddered, trying to take his hands off of it although he couldn’t do that and still hold it, and so it just ended up pressed to his chest, still thrumming. “What do you want me to do with this?”
“Have you been living under a rock?” Infume snorted.
Feinberg whipped around, digging the pads of his fingers into the cube. “I don’t need your backseating, thanks,” he seethed.
His new boss did not look even the slightest bit amused when he answered. “You use whatever power you have. Some people try to melt it. Others crush it. Your power is not unique. A simple zap should do.”
A simple zap. Anybody who said it like that wasn’t good enough to understand him.
He pressed his palms against the flimsy sides, they nearly gave in on him. It had been a long time since Fein willingly tried to use his power. Once, a year ago, it had burst out of him and he had nearly shocked one of his cats, and afterwards, he had pulled him to his chest and kissed his forehead and let him claw at his arms because what else was he supposed to do? Sorry wasn’t a word he knew how to say. Never had been.
“Whenever it’s most convenient,” he said scathingly. Feinberg narrowed his eyes. After so long without even reaching for the energy brewing inside him intentionally—maybe the spark would have gone out. All of it vanished beneath a roiling sea of normalcy.
This wasn’t something you ever forgot, though. It just wasn’t. You remember how you kill the only person who ever loved you enough to forgive you.
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It had been months of hunting and searching and waiting to strike, but they had found him, finally, and in the skyscraper that he was waiting in, Couriway and Feinberg both crept, their footsteps light and their bodies weightless. So high in the sky that Fein could feel the charges shifting in the clouds—there would be a thunderstorm soon. Couri practically glowed in the dark, his gold costume lacking discreetness in every possible way.
Saying nothing, Couri pointed towards the stairs to the roof, and Fein took a breath. He hated heights and Couri knew it, but he also knew that if he were to fall, unlike with any other winged hero, Couri would surrender this villain in favor of diving after him, no questions asked.
He couldn’t wait to get home and resume their game of Monopoly, which kept going on and on as it always did when Couri was the banker, because he kept loaning money to the broke people and never collecting it. Reign was at least eight five hundreds in debt.
Fein grunted his assent and pushed off the wall, raising his two fingers like a gun and readying his mind to translate noise into a burst of lightning. Couri gently rested a hand on his shoulder and shook his head. Fein did not want to, but he backed down anyway.
“Stay,” Couri whispered. “Go when I call you.”
“What?” Fein hissed.
“They’re prepared for your power,” Couri replied, “not mine.”
Fein furrowed his brow, but Couri wasn’t stupid. He hustled up the stairs, feet barely making any sound; Fein hadn’t decided if it was just hollow bones or all of his practice of careful, slow movement had paid off.
This was it. It buzzed in his bones as he followed his best friend closely to the door, which didn’t even creak under his light hand. Couri glanced back at him for confirmation for only a moment before he nodded and disappeared onto the roof.
Fein waited. He counted and breathed for a minute and a half because he knew would it took to be good backup, a good friend. And then, as soon as he felt the energy bursting from the sky, he raced up after him, knowing the signature, knowing this was Couriway’s final move that always ended with a villain in handcuffs.
As soon as his feet reached the stable concrete, something was wrong. The air—it was always alive. Nobody realized how much was going on in a city until they could hear all of it, all at once. The world reached its fingers into his head and twisted, always, but this was different.
Across the roof, he could see their villain, laying on the ground, looking quite dead, but Couriway never killed, just incapacitated. His eyes swum, and he clutched his head.
This wasn’t just the city alive at his fingertips. This was everything, as though the whole world was whispering every secret it had ever had directly into his ear—it knocked him to the ground and he wheezed.
“Fein!” Couri yelled. “Are you okay?” His footsteps clattered towards him, no longer so elegant, his voice breaking with concern. Fein could not summon a single thought, but his chest filled with a deep panic at the thought of Couri close to him.
He couldn’t place it, the dull thrumming throughout his head, like tinnitus but so much lower, and he clutched himself, barely breathing.
“It’s okay,” Couri insisted, crouching beside him. Every bit of the gentleness they had broadcasted him with.
“Get—out,” Fein hissed. “Get away. Go. GO!” Again and again, he spoke until it was screaming and his throat was raw, and it echoed in his ears and sang in the air violently.
Couri’s eyes were soft and kind, his hands reaching out to him, but Fein could not think of anything but the assailants on his mind, and his words were either echoing or still being ripped from him, and he could feel tears etching themselves down his cheeks, and he never met people’s eyes, but when he looked right at Couri, he saw no panic and no anger, just a smile that was as known to him as his own heartbeat, which was speeding through his ears and then, it was out of his body, it was everywhere, it was the storm and the storm became him, and he was panic personified and the energy ripped through him and Couri’s hand touched him for only a moment to wipe his cheek clean of saltwater and then he was flying, unlike he had ever flown before, and Feinberg smelled burning feathers and singed hair and skin, and he waited, because Couri would rejoin him atop the rooftop coughing and burnt but laughing softly in the back of his throat, and they dragged him from the roof and treated his wounds, and the game of Monopoly was left on the table of their apartment and nobody ever came to finish it, and he waited.
It took him too long to realize it wasn’t just Couri who wasn’t coming back. That in the early hours of the morning, people passed through the house and took their fragments with them, left no condolences, and Fein pretended he could not tell it was Fulham or Poundy walking in to take a photo that was gone by the time he decided to wake up.
The time passed differently when he was never sleeping but always tired. He could not tell what he was dreaming and what he was remembering. He did not know if he had made it to the edge of the roof and seen Couri reaching for him, or if he had just collapsed and convulsed.
He had broken New York City, an entire grid empty of electrical power for a week. He had toppled a building. And he had killed his best friend.
When he resigned it was without honor or purpose.
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When he woke up, he was nauseous. Feinberg stumbled to the bathroom of the empty, dull room they had given him and he vomited up the nice meal that had sealed him into their agency, and he cried from the force of it in his throat as he gagged again and coughed up the last of it. He ran his hands through his too short hair and he remembered the time that he had done this in New York, when Couri had woken up too, and he blearily stumbled to the bathroom to rub his shaking back and smile tiredly. He brought him bread slathered in melted butter, cinnamon, and brown sugar and sat with him for the hour it took him to eat it, and he was up with him until his alarm went off in the morning, and he never complained and never collapsed, not until he got home and curled up on the couch trying to watch a movie and fell asleep there and Fein had to somehow figure out for the first time in his life how to carry another defenseless human being to bed and cover them in blankets. His apology died in his throat. It always did.
More than anything in the world, Feinberg found himself lacking the grief for Couriway as a whole person, just the fragments that drifted through his mind. The pieces of behavior that had seemed so peculiar—that he had mocked him for, even—stood out in a world where everything else was monochrome and identical.
The rank bracelet on his arm felt heavy, its diamond-studded II taunting him. He had been much higher than that back then, but he supposed whatever physical and mental measurements the calculator took underestimated his capacity for growth, and so, there it was—Couriway had never cared for improving his rank. Fein slammed his head into the rim of the bathtub and hoped he bled, because at least blood was red and could not remind him of the pretty emerald of Couri’s badge that he somehow found honor from.
He did not fall back asleep, just got dressed, slipped through the hallways as broken and bloodied heroes returned from their night shifts. He had his briefing that night, over dinner, after all, and when he scanned his bracelet, the door let him out, and so, in the morning air he kept his arms close to his chest and walked.
He had to kill her. That was the simpleset part of it. Through some other connection they had formed with her secretly, she knew she had a fallen hero making their way to her that night at a cocktail party. His job was as simple as it sounded: kill her and destroy her operation. She couldn’t be made into a martyr—her people would be imprisoned. And she would be dead. For doubting an all-knowing gray box.
Fein walked down to the lakefront, which was frozen over this time of year, the beach devoid of people except for the runners that he walked past, feeling nothing more than inadequate, but not doing anything to change that. He had never been a runner, not in that sense. To him, physical activity that didn’t have an express purpose was useless. He’d hated Baseline Fitness, even when he got to run with Couri, and kept up with his slow, even pace. He could always run much, much farther than the rest of them, his cheeks barely red, as though it was easier, almost, to slow down and breathe.
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To his surprise, she did not offer him a cocktail, just a glass of sparkling water that she poured directly in front of him. The mask she wore, she did not take off, and she kept the jacket tucked close around her despite the fact that it was much warmer in this room than it had been outside.
“You want to work for me,” she finally spoke. She did not drink either, emptying the rest of the can into a second glass for herself. But she did not raise it to her lips, which, Fein supposed, was probably because it would then require her to take her mask off.
“Something like that,” Fein shrugged. “I dunno. Figured you know my history.”
“I do,” she replied. “But I’d like to think there’s a little more to you than a disgraced ex-hero with…” She looked over at a post-it note on her computer. “...thirty-nine cats.”
“Thirty-nine, now?” Fein chuckled. “That’s more than I thought.” He ran his fingers across the edge of the table and remarked on its unique texture. It was one of the few varnishes that he actually enjoyed the texture of, and it almost felt like she knew that, though, that was being absurd.
“We’d be able to keep them here, if you wanted,” she said.
Fein raised his eyebrows. “You want to hire me and thirty-nine cats?”
“You might be worth thirty-nine cats,” she said.
“Don’t count on it. The food’s more than my rent,” he grumbled.
“Which wouldn’t be an issue,” she replied, opening a drawer and holding a file out to him. “This would be…about what we’d expect for you.”
Fein stared at it for a few moments, and then looked up at her.
“You’re supposed to read it.” Her voice wasn’t unkind, and for some reason, this put him at ease as the air tightened in his lungs. His fingers closed around the file and he opened it, scanning through the legal jargon and humming like he understood it.
“It’s one-hundred ninety thousand dollars,” she summarized for him. “Plus an apartment here—they’re not giant, but I think they’re comfortable.”
Fein stared at the words until they held no meaning in his head, because the truth was he did not really care that much; sleeping in a bed would be strange after all this time, in a quiet apartment, no sounds of the street, it made him shudder just to think about it.
“Okay,” he said, because it wasn’t like he had anything better to do than kill her. “I’ll, uh…take it. I’ll take it.”
Her shoulders puffed backwards in pride. “Good.” She stood up, her fingers slipping over a button on the side of her desk, and the door pushed open to reveal a bright-eyed girl who bounded over with wide strides. “Would you take him to 28-C, please?”
“My stuff—” Fein protested. She shook her head.
“Don’t worry about it, Feinberg. We’ll take care of it. You’ll have a spare change of clothes in there, the room’s already made up,” she said and tilted her head. “Can’t have a valuable asset on the streets. I heard you had a run-in with Infume.”
Fein froze. “Who?” he said stupidly.
She laughed. “You know. Don’t worry, I just…don’t want you out there, injured. We do things in groups here. For safety.”
Fein could not help but let his nose wrinkle, but it was something much more complicated than annoyance, because he simply did not work in pairs, not since him.
“It’s not as simple as you’ll be assigned a partner,” she replied. “I want you to work with me.”