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If Crina could say one thing about this afternoon, the only words she would be able to utter are What the fuck?
What had been intended to be a pleasant hang out under the hot sun with the smell of meat and fire lingering in the air, had quickly turned into a nightmare, with a child's scream overpowered by the horrifying sounds of the mech suit. She had been sat in a crappy plastic chair, talking to Xuli and Rory about something she couldn't even remember anymore, when the sound of the mech suit powering on its defence protocol cut through the air. There was only one person who could be in the shed right now, and she'd prayed that he wasn't the one in there right now, a prayer immediately trashed by Robbie gasping Robert's name loud enough for her to hear. It had all happened so fast, too fast even for her well trained instincts from over a decade of being a hero. She had pulled herself to her feet as fast as possible, running to the shed only several feet behind Robbie, who had managed to shut off the defence protocol before it killed the two boys inside. While Robbie had run inside, Crina had frozen in the doorway of smashed wood, only able to see little Robert gripping onto Chase like a frightened, cornered animal with tears on his cheeks and blood dripping down the side of his head from the missing chunk of his ear. She almost thought she could hear the sizzle of the wound from where the blast had hit him, only barely missing his head. At only 8 years old, already smaller than the average kid his age, he looked horrifically tiny and fragile, held tightly by an equally frightened Chase, a fear hidden and only given away by how desperately he held the little boy in his arms. She had finally come to her senses when she heard the harsh words Robbie uttered to the child with a stern look on his face.
"Get up."
She moves forward, intending to kneel down and do what she does best, the dripples of blood staining Robert's green shirt a horrid black red forming an acidic churn in her stomach, but she was stopped by a tight grip on her arm. She looks over at Robbie, who has a frigid glare that could freeze over lava in his eyes. This wasn't Robbie; it was Mecha Man.
"Robbie, this isn't the time. Just let me heal him." she says between gritted teeth.
"He has to get up first. He can't just lay down and take it. Wait."
She could've slapped him across the face for his bullshit; she could've easily pulled her arm from his hold, taken advantage of that extra strength superpowered people have over regular people, and just do as she liked, but she doesn't. In that moment, she was just as much Vitalia as he was Mecha Man, and Vitalia listened to orders during a crisis. So, she stands there and watches the poor boy pull himself to his feet, his knees quaking and his shoulders slumped, looking towards the ground and refusing to look his dad in the face, likely so the man wouldn't see the tears still present in his eyes. Once the boy was up and standing, Robbie let go of her arm, giving a small nod of permission and moving away towards the suit. In a second, she's on her knees, swiftly healing his weeping ear and dislocated shoulder she's just noticed with the warm glow of her hands. The blood was still there, a grizzly reminder of the wound that had just been, evidence that would take heavy scrubbing to remove. The shirt might never be clean again, just like the gap in his ear will never be knitted together again. She sighs, looks back at Robbie, who was preoccupied talking to Elliot about the repairs the suit will need, then back at Robert as she hoists him up in her arms from underneath his armpits. He quickly settles in her arms, gripping onto her shirt like he was afraid she'd disappear.
"Come on, let's go get you cleaned up." she says, putting on a smile for his sake. He tucks his head against her shoulder, and she took that as agreement to her statement. She looks away from the child, intending to ask Chase if he wants to come with them, but the older boy is gone. Even when not using his powers, Chase can run away so quickly. She'll have to talk to him later, once she's made sure Robert is as well as he can be after something so traumatising.
She quickly heads into the Robertson's house, walking up to the bathroom and sitting Robert down on the rim of the bathtub. Grabbing a rag and wetting it in the sink, she firmly rubs at the still fresh blood along the side of his head and on his ear. Thankfully, it hasn't had time to dry, so it comes off quicker than it would've usually, so she can move on to removing the stained shirt and cleaning the skin beneath of any blood that seeped through. Once that's done, she chucks the rag in the sink to be dealt with later, and quickly moves over to grab a clean shirt from Robert's room, a light blue one that is soft to the touch. Throughout this entire process, Robert was completely out of it, staring at the ground as if he was studying the grime between the tiles. Once the shirt is over his head and his arms are through the sleeves, he covers his face and his shoulders began to shake with tears. Crina has never been able to handle hearing a child cry, some ancient instinct inside her gut telling her to act, to stop the cries at all cost, the exact feeling going through her body now. She tucks Robert against her chest, running the palm of her hand up and down his back to hopefully soothe him.
They are there for what feels like hours, but was probably minutes, when the sobs seem to quiet down and the child goes limp in her arms. She looks down to see that poor Robert had cried himself to sleep. She sighs, picking him up and carrying him over to his bed, tucking him under the covers and wiping away the remaining tears on his cheeks. She walks back outside, looking on the rest of the Brave Brigade, who all seem to have moved on from what had just occurred. Robbie was back to grilling like nothing had ever happened, as if his son wasn't scarred and traumatised upstairs, knowing his dad refuses to give him even a moment of his day. Crina can feel the red hot anger burning in her veins, and she has half a mind to give them all a piece of her mind, especially fucking Robbie, but she can't will the energy into herself to form all those angry, spiteful words, pulling back into herself and looking around to spot Xuli and Elliot sat in the corner of the backyard together, although they were hardly talking to each other. Elliot was working on something in his hands, although he appeared distracted from his tinkering, and Xuli was looking around with a worried look on her face that didn't suit her typical bright energy, her hands in her lap and her back straight, alert. She approaches them, and she can see the exact moment Xuli sees her, because she lights up with a smile on her face, although her eyes still appear worried. Crina tries to smile back, but the events of the past several minutes make it hard to do so.
"Crina, hey!" she says with a tone of relief, her voice causing Elliot to look up from his work. He smiles and gives a small wave, before returning his attention back to what he was working on.
"Hey, Vivi! How's the kid doing?" Elliot asks, not looking up from his work. She gives a heavy sigh, one that has Elliot raising an eyebrow and Xuli's smile dimming. "Bad?"
"Sleeping. Hopefully he'll feel better when he wakes up." Elliot gives a passive hum at her words, likely having already expected that answer. Xuli shrinks into herself, looking down at her hands held together in her lap. She's being far too quiet, entirely unlike herself, so something heavy must be on her mind. She has a feeling she already knows what. "Are you okay, Xuli?"
"Yes, i'm just..." she raises her gaze to look beyond the backyard, beyond the white fence keeping them inside. She breaths in and out deeply before she speaks again. "I'm worried about Chase." It was exactly what Crina had thought. As the two youngest members of the team, with powers and personalities that compliment each other well, Chase and Xuli had grown close very quickly over the past couple of months.
"Yeah, me too. After Robert was all healed, he disappeared from the room before I could talk to him. I don't know where he's gone." she says, hoping that Xuli is looking past her because she knows where Chase is.
"I saw him run out the backyard and to the front of the house. I think he's still here though. I hope he's still here." Xuli says, tucking a stray hair away from her face. Crina hopes the fucker hasn't run home as well. She's not about to go knocking at his door to talk to him, especially since he's still a teenager that lives with his parents. She's not crossing that line.
"I'll go check." she mutters, and Xuli mumbles something back in agreement, turning her eyes to watch whatever the hell Elliot is doing.
She moves over swiftly through the house, snatching a pack of cigarettes and a lighter for herself, because she honestly really needs something to calm her down right now and cigarettes always do the trick for her. Thankfully, when she walks through the front door, she immediately spots the young boy sat on the curb in front of the house, knees pulled up to his chest and head tucked away against his raised legs. She moves over to sit next to him, and he gives no indication that he noticed her. She pulls out a cigarette and lights it on, and the sound of the lighter's clicks finally gets a slight peek from Chase. She inhales, taking in the soothing burn down to her lungs, before releasing the smoke into the air, watching the grey clouds rise up and disappear. Now she can feel Chase's eyes on her, and she raises up the box and shakes it slightly in his direction.
"Want one?" Okay, maybe she shouldn't be offering a 16 year old cigarettes, but in her defence, she's seen the boy before her drink plenty of alcohol in the past few months, she hardly thinks cigarettes can be any worse for him. Besides, she was younger than him when she first started smoking and she hasn't died yet. Chase hesitantly lifts a hand and grabs one from the box, using the offered lighter to light it on and taking a small drag from it. He immediately starts to cough, puffs of smoke coming out. Crina can't help but chuckle.
"Fucking hell! That fucking burns!" Chase says after he stops coughing up his soul. Now, she's outright laughing, earning a glare from the boy next to her.
"Yeah, that's normal the first time. It takes a bit until you get used to it." she says between laughs. Chase just sighs, turning away to look out into nowhere. Crina takes the chance to run her eyes over him, looking for any possible injuries he could be hiding, but nothing jumps out at her. Nothing obvious, anyway. "Are you hurt?"
"No." Chase mumbles out after a few moments. "I promise, just a bit sore, and feeling a bit fucked over."
"Huh?" What exactly does he mean by that? Chase doesn't elaborate, merely shrugging his shoulders. Perhaps he doesn't really know what he means either, or he doesn't want to.
"Is Robert okay?" he says instead.
"Yeah, he's fine. He's in bed right now. Cried himself to sleep." Perhaps she shouldn't have added that last part, because Chase suddenly looks like he's about to cry himself. He holds it back, barely.
"I should've-"
"No, let's not do that. Whatever you're about to say will not make you feel better. You couldn't have been any faster if you tried, and no one is upset with anything you did or didn't do afterwards. Stop hurting yourself like that." She says, lightly grabbing Chase's shoulder. The boy looks at her, really looks at her, with glassy eyes that are just barely holding back a flood. In that moment, all his 16 years are reflected so vividly; he's just a teenager.
"But I should've said something when-when Robbie was saying that shit. I should've been able to stand up for Robert, but i-i didn't." I couldn't remains unsaid, but Crina hears it all the same.
"Then I should've said something too, don't you think? I'm an adult, after all, unlike you." she says, ignoring the fact that she actually does think that. She should've spoken up, but she couldn't, like an utter fool. That would never make Chase feel better though. They are her woes alone.
"Still, I should have-" Chase stutters out. Crina just shakes her head. That's when the tears start to drip down, no matter how harshly Chase tries to wipe away at them. Crina lets the nearly finished cigarette drop to the ground, crushed beneath her foot, before she brings Chase into a side hug. He doesn't move to do anything, other than dropping the barely touched cigarette to the ground. They stay there for a few moments of silence before Chase speaks again between choked down sobs. "Can we go back inside?"
Crina nods, letting go so that Chase can pull himself to his feet and walk back towards the house. She follows him, crushing the abandoned cigarette on the way. Once the front door is shut behind them, a sob breaks through Chase's exterior. He tries to cover his mouth, as if it would make the sound go away, but it manages to seep through the gaps between his fingers, until his body is shaking with the force of it. She moves to hug him again, a proper hug this time, tight and steady and sure, and the poor boy practically collapses in her arms, leaning his head down against her shoulder. She can feel parts of her shirt turn moist and warm as the tears make contact with the fabric, but she hardly cares for it when faced with another child falling apart in her arms. Was she even helping? How much help was it to just stand there and offer an embrace and some nice words while they fell apart for a few moments? Only for them to then pull themselves together, wipe away the tears and toughen up again, just as she'd done for years and years until her shell had grown too hard to even allow her to shed tears anymore. Was she doing them any good, allowing that to happen? Was she making it worse? Could she even do anything better?
"I-i'm sorry. I fucked up your shirt." Chase says, pulling away and trying to wipe away the plentiful of tears still dripping down his cheeks. Crina waves a flippant hand in response.
"It's fine, it's just a shirt. It will dry." she says, patting down the small wet spot. She looks back at Chase, who is still trying to stop the tears coming from his eyes, rubbing away at them as if it might help. She reaches out for his arms, lowering them down away from his eyes, then moving her hold over to his hands. "You're allowed to cry. I mean, what happened in the shed was fucked up. You two could've died." And just saying that out loud opens up a great black pit in her stomach. It really had been too much of a close call. One second too late, and that would've been it. It made her sick.
"Speaking of, can I go check on Robert?" Chase mutters, his voice tight and scratchy, but not hiding the worry in his tone. She lightly pats his hand before giving him a shaky smile.
"Sure, go ahead. Just don't wake him up." Once he got permission, Chase practically flew up the stairs. Once he was out of sight, Crina slumped down and fell onto the couch, suddenly feeling incredibly exhausted.
She's not alone for long, as Xuli peeps in, looking around the room as if she was searching for something or someone. When she doesn't find anything, she looks back at her with a wide eyed look, and Crina merely points up the stairs. Xuli thankfully understands and seems to let go of some of the tension in her shoulders, joining Crina on the couch, laying her head on the older woman's shoulder.
"Is Chase okay?" she whispers, as if speaking too loud might shatter something in the air. Crina merely nods, unwilling to speak more words about this day already. "Are you okay?"
"I will be." is all she says with a stern tone that leaves no room for doubt. Perhaps if she sounds sure enough to others, she might start believing it herself. Xuli says nothing in response, accepting the answer as it is and shifting so that she's hugging Crina while still resting against her shoulder. Crina returns the hug, resting her cheek on top the younger girl's head.
She doesn't remember when she left and went home, but she must have at some point, since she's currently in bed and not in that house that has heard too many children weeping. She hugs a pillow to her chest, hoping to soothe the ache deep in her lungs trying to suffocate her. She can feel something like magma trying to crawl up her esophagus, burning like acid and making her sicker, yet when she tries to cough it out to finally breathe clearly, she can't. Her body refuses to let her succumb to such weakness. So, she bunches her body together, small as can be, small as if she were still a little girl in a new foreign place, and she drifts off to sleep.
At least her dreams let her scream.