Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Like all nineteen-year-old boys, Danny Chang had big dreams for his future. A Freshman computer science major at Citiesville Community College, he saw himself joining the ranks of Google or Apple making technology that would change the world. He worked hard, knowing he faced stiff competition from others like him at far more prestigious universities, but hard work was in his blood.

His mother, Doris, had come to this country when she was his age, and she’d carved out a space for herself working long hours at the Wright Chalk Factory. She’d had dreams too. Dreams that included a better life for her son than the life she had led.

But dreams were sand through a sieve without hard work to realize them. Doris had labored at the factory, and now Danny delivered pizzas in his 2008 Subaru Outback. Ragazzi’s didn’t pay for gas, but he didn’t want to schlep around Citiesville at night on a bike, so sacrifices had to be made.

Tonight, he had an extra incentive to get his deliveries done as quickly as possible. There was a show off-campus that he wanted to check out. Danny wasn’t a big partier, but there would be a DJ performing who was only playing this weekend, and he wanted to check it out.

He parked alongside the curb across the street from an apartment building to deliver two large Meat Lover’s pizzas and locked the Subaru. He wasn’t familiar with the area, which was in the Oceanside district clear on the other side of the city from his school. It was dark, and there was no one about. It was a quiet, residential area that seemed out of place in a city that never slept.

The apartment lobby was brightly lit, and the automatic doors slid open at his approach. A sleek, modern interior greeted him, white and cold and expensive. There was no one at the front dest, and an elevator required a security badge to access. Danny set the pizzas on the desk and rang the service bell. The chime echoed too loudly in the cavernous room.

He caught his warped reflection in the silver bell and scratched his baby-smooth chin. He had a young face, too young to go anywhere without a fake ID, but he’d remembered to bring his tonight. It was a photo of a thirty-five-year-old Filipino man name Vicente Mendoza, but to the brutish bar bouncers, he looked the same as the hundreds of Asian men who lived in the city. God bless casual, everyday racism.

Danny smiled wryly at the thought. One day, none of this would matter. He’d have a degree, he’d land a good job, and he’d be making enough money to support both his aging single mother and himself. And then, he wouldn’t have to be Vicente Mendoza anymore.

Lost in thought, he realized that he’d been standing here for several minutes, and yet no one had answered the bell call. He walked around the desk, leaving the pizzas. “Hello? Pizza delivery.”

No sound through the door marked Staff Only. He tried knocking, but no one came. The door was locked. The lobby desk was immaculate and sparse with only a desktop computer, a cup of pens, and locked file drawers.

“Hello? Is anyone here?” He rang the bell again. “Great, a prank order. This’ll come out of my paycheck.”

It happened every so often, but his boss was a miserly old bastard who refused to swallow the cost when it happened. Sighing, he fished out his phone to call his mother and see if she was awake and able to take the pizzas. They shouldn’t go to waste.

Before he could scroll to her contact, the staff door opened and a woman in a rumpled skirt suit emerged. She smiled brightly. “Can I help you with something?”

“Uh, yeah. Someone ordered a couple pizzas.”

“Are you sure you have the right address?”

He checked the address on the order and read it to her. “Two Meat Lover’s pizzas for Joaquin.”

The woman’s painted smile twitched. “There’s no one here by that name. I’m sorry, it seems like someone called in a fake order and sent you on a wild goose chase.”

Danny sighed. “Yeah, I figured as much. Listen, do you want the pizzas?”

“Me?”

“It’s just, my boss docks delivery staff’s pay when this happens, so if you can take them, it’d really help me out.”

She fished out a few bills from her purse. “Here, I’m sorry for your trouble. Please be on your way.”

Danny accepted the $100 bill she'd given him. “Uh, this is, like, way too much. I don’t even think I have enough cash on me to break this.”

She shook her head. “It’s fine, keep the change and leave the building. We’re not open to visitors at this hour, so you really can’t be here.”

Danny took a moment to look at her properly this time. She was white, forties, bright red lips. Her suit wasn’t rumpled but disheveled, like she’d been doing something physical. What was that brownish stain on her collar?

“Hey lady, are you okay? You look…”

Impossibly, she smiled even brighter and walked around the desk to him. “I’m just fine, but I really must insist that you be on your way now.”

Clickety-clack, her heels on the tile. She took his elbow and squeezed, still smiling. He was reminded of those A.I. robocallers that sounded like talking to a real person, until they were asked if they were robots: of course I’m a real person.

Danny was very much ready to leave. He headed for the door. That was when the elevator dinged and the doors opened. A man in a one-piece, navy uniform stumbled out the doors and hit the ground with a thud. Delirious, blue eyes found Danny’s as the man on the ground, sweating so profusely that Danny wondered if he was actually drenched in oil, struggled to get through the doors. “What the hell?” 

The woman tightened her grip on his elbow. Her smile was gone when she spoke into a sleek radio piece in her ear that Danny hadn’t even noticed before. “Security to the main lobby. The test subject is here and conscious... Out of the fucking elevator! Just hurry!”

Danny tried to struggle away from her and from the madman on the floor inching closer to them. He had a flaky, red rash staining his neck and cheeks. “Let go of me!”

She did not let him go. “You should have left when you had the chance.”

All the blood drained from Danny’s face as he met her gaze. Gone was the mechanical politeness. The woman staring back at him was as cold as a corpse. There was no light in her eyes, no mercy, and a primal part of Danny knew she wasn’t going to let him leave here alive.

He began to struggle in earnest. “Get off me!”

The man on the floor coughed as he dragged himself over the tiles. His nails were long, too long for a man’s, and cracked the tile were he dug his fingers in. “Please,” he slurred, his eyes feverish and unfocused. “I got ‘em what they wanted, please—hrrrngh!” He vomited right there, black bile that looked more like petroleum than anything the human body could discharge.

Danny moved without thinking. He shoved the woman with all his might, no longer caring about the money or about her. He had to get out of here by any means necessary, and so he made a break for the door. He only made it three steps before he tripped over his feet in his haste, landed on the floor, and smashed his nose. Blood and pain erupted in his face, and he groaned. Even still, he had to move. He had to move. He got to his unsteady feet, his head swimming, and the woman was on him with her small but steely hands. He flailed. She held on, until she didn’t.

The man on the floor had crawled close enough to grab her ankle, and he yanked with surprising strength until all three of them were on the floor again. A terrible, fetid stink made Danny’s eyes water, and he realized it was coming from the man. The woman shrieked. She inadvertently smacked Danny in the face, and he fell back, dazed. He vaguely registered the elevator doors opening again, and a group of people in black with rifles poured out. People shouted, shoes slapped the tile, and Danny willed himself to get up and move.

The woman screamed, and something cracked. Maybe not in that order. Danny didn’t care, he was on his feet and stumbling for the doors, but he never made it. A sharp pain in his shoulder startled him, and the second one in his neck sent him crashing back to the floor in a heap. He was not getting up again. He could barely feel his limbs as the tranquilizer invaded his veins like lead weighing him down.

Through his tears, he caught a blurry vision of the madman, also shot, rising impossibly on his knees with a roar. The woman lay on the floor nearby; she wasn’t moving. Uniformed men shouted at each other, and the man swiped at them with his rash-red arms. Danny didn’t think it was possible for a person’s skin to be such an angry shade of crimson.

“Restrain it!” someone said.

Soon, they did. The madman fell still, subdued.

“Is she alive?” 

“Doesn’t matter. Grab her and the kid. And get the cleaners in here. This room reeks like a Lumpkins’ armpit.”

Danny felt arms envelop him and haul him up. He tried to protest, to scream, but he couldn’t even move. His transporter carried him over the bodies of the woman, who Danny instinctively knew must be dead, and the madman still twitching. The rash desiccated his skin and split it into scales.

“Hey, who ordered pizza?”

“Joaquin mentioned something. I’ll grab them. Damn, I could eat a horse after chasing that ugly fucker all the way up from Level Nine.”

Someone laughed. One of the uniforms grabbed the pizzas.

“Please,” Danny muttered, his own voice unrecognizable as blood from his broken nose dribbled over his lips.

“Sorry, kid,” said the man carrying him in the elevator. “Just bad luck, I guess.”

The man carrying the pizzas joined them while the others remained. “Smells good. Is that pepperoni?”

Danny wept silently as he hung limp and upside-down, and the elevator carried him down to depths unknown. He closed his eyes and passed out, and he didn’t dream.

It was raining when Blossom Utonium exited the Citiesville International Airport. She stared at the multitude of Ubers and Lyfts clogging the Departures level like ants escaping a flood. People cursed and slammed doors in their haste to escape the downpour and make their red eye flights. A woman with two enormous Husky dogs argued with a terminal employee, a mess of jabbing fingers and spittle-slick lips. A baby cried in a stroller, jostled as its father ran too quickly across the street to catch up with its mother and their two overstuffed suitcases.

Blossom took a step toward the grey outside and nearly tripped when an older gentleman rushing to get inside out of the rain bumped her shoulder. She caught herself easily, but dropped her black roller on the ground with a smack. The man didn’t stop to apologize, let alone to help her with her luggage. She closed her eyes and breathed. The city's smog tasted tangy in the back of her throat under the layers of damp, concrete city.

After a moment to collect herself, she picked up her bag, fished out her phone from her jacket pocket, and called a Lyft. Ten minutes later, Carlos the Lyft driver popped the trunk of his Corolla so she could load up her roller bag, and she settled in the backseat. His eyes found hers in the rearview mirror, lingering.

“The Marigold Inn,” he said as he pulled out of the roundabout and headed for the freeway. “You here on vacation, Blossom?”

Blossom tensed at the sound of her name on a stranger’s lips, but a quick glance at his mounted Pixel and her picture hovering in the corner of the screen reminded her that of course he knew her name, it was part of the app. She averted her gaze out the window all the same. “I wouldn’t call it that.”

Instead of taking the hint, Carlos pushed his luck. “Well, it may not look like much from here, but your part of town’s got a view of the bay. Nice when it’s sunny.”

“Mm.”

Blossom watched the rain run down the window of Carlos’ silver Corolla as the industrial, concrete grey of the south side city limits gave way to the imperious, glass and steel grey of downtown Citiesville. Even she in all her natural, fiery red paled and waned under all that dreary monotony. Not that it mattered. Waterlogged and exhausted from the flight and the whirlwind day leading up to it, Blossom was more ashes than open flame as she stared out the window at this tired city she had never imagined setting foot in again so soon.

There was a lot she’d never imagined happening these days.

Carlos was talking to her again.

“Sorry, what did you say?”

He glanced at her surreptitiously in the rearview mirror. “Just saying if you’re new around here and you wanted some company, you know, I’ve lived here my whole life, so I know my way around.”

Blossom must have been glaring at him something spectacular because he immediately backtracked.

“Uh, not that I’m hitting on you or something. Sorry, I just meant… Shit, please don’t dock my rating for that.”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it.”

He watched her in the mirror again as they paused at a stoplight. “You just seem a little sad, is all.”

Blossom had the overwhelming urge to laugh at him then. Instead, she smiled thinly. “Nonsense, I’m here to see my sisters. I couldn’t be happier.”

Carlos didn’t try to strike up conversation with her again, and she was glad for it. She mumbled a thank you when he dropped her off in front of her hotel, retrieved her bag from the trunk, and trudged inside to check in. Bubbles had offered her a room back at their childhood home, but Blossom had refused. She didn’t want to impose, she’d said. Bubbles hadn’t pressed her over the phone, but she had promised they would talk about it again when Blossom landed.

Blossom hadn’t called Bubbles to let her know she’d arrived yet. She was pretty sure she wasn’t going to.

After settling in to her queen bed suite and opening up the curtains (with a view of the solemn, foggy bay, Carlos hadn’t been lying about that), Blossom headed for the bathroom to wash her face. Under the stale lights, her skin was sallow and jaundiced. The bags under her half-lidded, pink eyes were shadowy and sore. Her waist-length red hair was tangled and damp from the rain. Thirty years old with the world at her feet and her future bright ahead of her, and she looked like she’d died ten years ago. No wonder Carlos had thrown her a bone, Jesus Christ.

But even here in this tiny, bleached, hotel bathroom with its cheap bar soap and stingy little two-in-one shampoo bottles, Blossom scraped together the last dregs of her pride and splashed cold water on her face. A quick hair brush and some mascara later, and she was out the door in jeans and a simple cardigan with no destination in mind as long as it was not here.

“I need a drink,” she said to the receptionist on duty, a high school boy named Trevor with an unfortunate brush of acne under his jaw.

“Um…”

“Sorry, I’m not usually this rude.” She ran her hand through her long ponytail, a calming force of habit. “Just please point me to the nearest bar.”

Trevor the receptionist gathered his high school courage and helpfully provided Blossom with a map of the area. The nearest bar was a convenient few blocks away, and the Marigold had plastic ponchos for guests daring enough to brave the rain. Blossom donned the clear plastic and headed out.

B-3 was nothing special judging from its concrete and sheet glass façade, but inside it was almost welcoming. Worn, leather tub chairs huddled around low tables between exposed wooden support beams. The repossessed concrete walls were bare and cracked in places, but in a manner that suggested fashionable destruction rather than shabby upkeep. Edison lights hung on skinny cords from the high ceiling and cast the open room in a warm, buttery glow. A dark wood bar stretched the length of the far wall.

Blossom removed her dripping poncho and dumped the sopping heap in the umbrella stand at the door without much consideration. She made her way past a few seated patrons to the bar and took a seat at the end. Her phone buzzed.

[Bubbles: Did you land yet?]

[Bubbles: Your flight status said you landed over an hour ago. Where are you?]

Blossom’s thumbs hovered over her iPhone’s keyboard, but she drew a blank. All she could do was stare at the bright screen.

“Brave of you to come out in the rain.” Pale fingers slipped a cocktail napkin toward her from behind the bar. “What’s your poison?”

Blossom didn’t bother looking up as she traced Bubbles’ smiling icon with her thumb. “I’ll have a glass of red wine, please. Dry.”

When he didn’t respond or move out of her space right away, Blossom frowned. She was really not in the mood to be hit on or even talked to right now, but she was running out of what little courtesy she still had in her and—

“Blossom?”

It took her a moment to recognize him after so many years, but there was no mistaking those deer-in-the-headlights baby blues. “Boomer?”

“Damn, it really is you.” He offered her a small but genuine smile and leaned forward on his elbows. Cornflower bangs fell into his eyes in a way that she may have found pretty if he were anyone else. A three-piece suit flattered him the way fashion always flatters a good figure, but it didn’t quite suit his vibe. There was nothing neo noir-suave about Boomer. Or, there hadn’t used to be. “What’s it been, ten years?”

“Twelve. High school graduation.”

He grinned. “I think you might be off by a few days, or did you forget the grad party at Vista Lake?”

Blossom set her jaw. She hadn’t thought about high school in ages. She hadn’t much cared to. “Right.”

He studied her, and she found that odd. Boomer had never been the studious type, be it books or people. Not that she remembered, at least. She was starting to wonder if she remembered much at all.

“I’ll be right back with your wine.” He winked and headed to the opposite end of the bar where a collection of wine bottles sat waiting.

Blossom sat back in her bar stool. Of all the bars she could have walked into, it had to be one where someone from her past worked—a former Rowdyruff Boy, of all the things. What were the chances?

Briefly, bizarrely, she fantasized about reaching across the bar, grabbing him by his perfectly folded black tie, and launching him clear across the room to open up more cracks in the concrete wall. Her unused muscles tingled with the phantom sensation of exerting her unique brand of force, and her pulse spiked. To just break something, someone—someone who wouldn’t truly break so it was okay, it wouldn’t actually hurt him, just crack him open—

“One very dry, very French wine for the lady.” Boomer deposited a goblet filled with dark wine on her cocktail napkin.

Blossom bit her tongue hard enough to taste blood, but the pain dissolved in mere seconds thanks to the Chemical X bonded to her bones. She fished out her wallet from her purse.

“On the house.” Boomer was still watching her with that pensive, soft smile.

“That’s not necessary.”

He shrugged. “My bar, my rules.”

Without meaning to, Blossom’s sharp mind filed that information away for later. It was like a sponge, her brain—always soaking up facts and gossip and so many secrets until it was too much to contain in her skull, the pressure enough to burst. In lieu of answering, she took a long gulp of the wine.

Boomer said nothing as he watched her drink down half the glass in two sips and set the goblet down with a heavy sort of permanence.

“Thanks,” she muttered. A migraine teased her temples with butterfly kisses. She was definitely going to need more wine before the night was over.

“Sure.” He reached behind the bar and produced a small bowl of peanuts and a lounge menu for her. “Try the sliders. You won’t regret it.”

Blossom let herself really look at him then. He was an approachable height, noticeable but not intimidating, and he filled out his suit as well as anyone with inhuman strength and ability ought to, she supposed. His baby-faced, boy-next-door charm from his youth had smoothed to a flattering jawline that probably pleased many a patron on lonely nights, but not Blossom. The only thing that could please her tonight would be another glass of wine.

Those hooded, blue eyes watched her a little too carefully, she noted.

“There’s not much you can do with grilled meat in a bun that hasn’t already been done before."

He laughed, light and amiable. “No reason to fix what’s not broken.” He took the menu from her and went to order the sliders.

Blossom had not been looking for company tonight, least of all from a former Rowdyruff Boy. There was…history there. And while it had been years since Boomer and his notorious brothers had outgrown their wanton destructive tendencies and general penchant for mischief and mayhem (as far as the public was concerned), there was no forgetting who they were, why they were created, where they had came from. There was no forgetting where she’d come from, either.

Well, glass of wine number two might have something to say about that.

“What about Napa? It’d be perfect—we could have the ceremony at a vineyard all to ourselves.”

Blossom downed the rest of her wine to drown out that phantom voice in her head. She grimaced. It was a nice wine, really. It didn’t deserve her crass mistreatment of it. But some things could not be salvaged no matter how pretty or perfect they appeared to be on the outside.

Boomer returned with a long plate topped with three micro burgers and some smoky dipping sauce. “Another?” He eyed her empty wine glass, and then her empty hands.

Blossom hid her hands on her lap. She hadn’t even realized she’d been rubbing her bare fingers. “Yes, please.”

“Coming right up.”

She picked at the food. It occurred to her that she’d skipped dinner. The flight out here hadn’t exactly been smooth planning. As it was, she’d barely had the nerve to brave her apartment to pack up her clothes and a toothbrush before she got the hell out of there and called Bubbles to sob her stupid, broken heart out because she’d had no one else to call.

Weird how we are loneliest when the only ones left to reach out to are family. 

Boomer returned with a fresh glass of wine just as Blossom forced herself to swallow a bite of food. “So, what’s the verdict? Was I right or what?”

Blossom washed down her food with a deep swallow of wine. “It’s fine.” And then, because she just couldn’t help herself no matter how terrible her day was going, “Thank you.”

He left to tend to some of the other patrons for a bit, and Blossom nursed her pitiful dinner. Her phone buzzed; Bubbles again, asking where she was. Blossom sighed, finished her second glass of wine, and texted back.

[Blossom: I’m fine. Checked into a hotel.]

Immediately, Bubbles wrote back.

[Bubbles: No way!!!!! You’re staying here. I’m coming to get you, okay? Just text me the address.]

Blossom rubbed her temples and reminded herself that Bubbles meant well. She’d picked up the phone, which was more than Blossom could say for Buttercup. Life as a big city detective must be as busy as it was harrowing, she supposed. Not that Blossom blamed her sister; she probably would not have picked up in Buttercup’s shoes, either.

[Blossom: I’ll see you tomorrow.]

She turned off her phone.

“So what’s a hotshot lawyer from Metroville doing back in our neck of the woods, anyway?” Boomer asked as he polished glasses. “You here to put away a murderer or something?”

Blossom could only guess that Boomer knew about her current (former) career through Bubbles. Which meant they had stayed in touch. Which meant…something. Honestly, right now, she didn’t care enough to dwell on it. “Not many murderers out there killing corporations.”

Boomer nodded like he understood this perfectly. “Huh. I always thought you’d end up doing, like, pro bono. Public defender, immigration, you know.” 

You know.

Blossom pushed her empty glass of wine toward him in a silent request. “Not much money in that. Student debt doesn’t pay for itself.”

He accepted her glass and pulled the wine bottle out from beneath the bar. “I guess I wouldn’t know.”

He poured, and she watched. The third glass went down smooth like water, a worthy contender to her building migraine. Chemical X could work wonders, but it could do nothing for stress.

“This is your bar.” She was a little surprised at herself for initiating conversation when she’d come here to do the exact opposite. She blamed the way he reminded her of Bubbles. Sometimes there was no helping talking to someone who was genuinely listening.

“For the past three years, yeah. Don’t know about student debt, but commercial rent’s a bitch and a half.”

Blossom cracked a smile. “Then you could use all the customers you can get.” She went for her wallet again and slid her credit card toward him.

“Blossom—”

“Just take it, please. I get double points on dining, anyway.” She went back to her new glass of wine.

“Right.”

With her tab now open and waiting, she was not shy about ordering dessert. Boomer poured her a glass of water, unsolicited.

“I’ll put it on your tab,” he teased.

Tongue loosened with alcohol and her self-restraint tossed to the wind considering the circumstances that had landed her back here in the first place, Blossom was forthright. “You’re not like I remember you. Not at all.”

His eyes flashed with something she couldn’t read, it was gone too fast. “What, not an awkward teenager trying to cover up his insecurities by playing the class clown? Or not dumb?”

“Not clueless,” she said, ignoring the self-deprecating opening. She hadn’t lost all her wits, thank you. “You’re…perceptive.”

He watched her a moment, perceptive as he was. “You see a lot standing behind a bar.”

“So, what do you see?”

Slowly, as if not to spook her, he leaned on the bar and showed her his palms. “How ‘bout you tell me?”

Unbidden, Blossom recalled an incident far in the past when Boomer, stripped of his smelly clothes and trapped in the basement of her childhood home, sat curled up in the corner, barely able to move.

“I don’t care what they say,” he’d said, more to himself than to Blossom and Buttercup. “I’m not dumb.”

She sipped her wine to hide her trembling lip. “I don’t think I’ve had enough wine to entertain such a conversation with you.”

“Always gotta be the leader, huh?” 

“What does that mean?”

He took her empty slider plate and discreetly pushed her water glass closer. “You know what it means.”

She said nothing, and he left to deposit her dish in the sink. Blossom set her jaw and reached over the bar for the bottle of red to refill her glass, seeing as he wasn’t going to do it.

At some point, she was good and drunk. It wasn’t an exact minute or second she could pinpoint, more like a gradual awareness that yeah, this was happening, and finally. With all the Chemical X in her system burning away night and day, it was hard to enjoy a stiff drink like a normal person.

“You’re never going to be normal, Bloss!”

Blossom rubbed her tired eyes hard, willing his voice back down to the black pit in her heart whence it came. Boomer was busy seeing to other patrons, and if she wasn’t so determined to wallow in her own issues, Blossom may have appreciated how good he was at his job putting on a show for those looking to be distracted. Even her, yes.

“It’s a guy,” she said when he paused near her to fill an order on the computer. “A man, I mean. Isn’t it always.”

Boomer eyed her over the computer, the greenish light garish on his cheeks. “Husband?”

Observant indeed. She would have to be more careful getting hammered in front of him. Next time.

Ha.

“Fiancé. Doctor.”

“He cheat on you?” He asked the question like he was asking after her good health.

Blossom drank her wine. Boomer’s gaze was heavy on her profile.

“You let him live?”

Blossom found that question absolutely hilarious, because he was him, and while he knew very little about her, he knew her like most never would, and he was dead serious. She burst out laughing. Boomer didn’t even crack a smile as he waited for her to calm down.

“I forgot how funny you used to be.” She rested her chin on her palm and gazed at him, hazy-drunk.

Boomer did not share her amusement at all. “Did he know you?”

What an odd thing to ask. As if she might have been engaged to Wei and he never knew she was that Blossom, leader of the once-venerated Powerpuff Girls of Townsville, monster-slayer and Superhero, unrivaled by the likes of mere mortal men so high up on her pedestal. As if he never swore that none of that mattered, that she was as much flesh and blood and heart as he was, and so goddamn beautiful he could cry. As if he couldn’t love her without expectation, unguarded, equally.

As if a man could love a god and expect to ever be anything more than just a man next to her.

“Yes.” Her breath hitched, and she knew he could see what she normally kept so carefully composed because it just didn’t matter anymore. “He knew.”

She finished her glass of wine and gestured at him for another. He looked like he wanted to say something, but she glared at him over the rim. Unbidden, an old, achingly familiar heat pooled in the backs of her eyes, flashing them bloody red. Boomer pulled back instinctively, tense.

“Please,” she commanded.

He said nothing and fished out another bottle of wine for her. Blossom grabbed the bottle from him before he could put it away, and he didn’t fight her on it. Smart choice. Perhaps he really wasn’t as dumb as he used to be, she thought, deriving some meager, petty satisfaction from her judgment. It did nothing for her.

Blossom drank her wine, and Boomer didn’t try to engage her again, though he annoyingly hovered nearby as though to keep an eye on her. She was beginning to reconsider her earlier whim of yanking him over the bar and beating the daylights out of him, just to know what it would feel like after years of calculated restraint.

At some point, Blossom stopped counting the glasses of wine as she slumped on the bar, half asleep and wholly drunk. And still her migraine persisted. She thought of Wei and his chunky glasses that she’d picked out as half a joke, and how he’d kept them because she’d said they made him look cute. How he’d proposed to her as they watched the sunrise over the ocean from their high rise apartment, quiet and over their usual morning coffee, soft whispers and gentle touches.

She thought of his late working nights and hers, so many billable hours and so many E.R. shifts. The way he’d clam up when someone occasionally recognized her and asked for an autograph, or a picture, or a show of that legendary strength. The fight they’d had after she’d abandoned their date night to intervene in a hit and run they witnessed, tearing off in a streak of blinding pink after the fleeing car, and the aftermath with the police. The odd texts he’d get in the middle of the night. The late nights that turned into over nights. The smell of someone else’s perfume on his scrubs. The look on his face when she accidentally grabbed his hand just a little too hard while they argued and sent him sprawling on the floor like a rag doll. The way she’d left with hardly more than the clothes on her back, because he’d told her to get out. Get out and don’t ever come back.

Most of all, though, she thought about how much she still loved him.

“Blossom.” A warm hand shook her shoulder. “Can you hear me?”

Blossom didn’t remember laying her head on the bar, and she certainly didn’t remember Bubbles being here. “Huh?”

“Hey, you.” Bubbles smoothed her bangs. Her big, blue eyes were glassy with unshed tears. “Come on, let’s get you home.”

“Let me help,” Boomer said somewhere above Blossom,

“It’s okay, I’ve got her.”

“You’re gonna fly her home in this rain?”

“No, I drove. You know that annoying ordinance. It’s fine, thanks for calling me, Boomer.”

“No problem…”

Blossom barely heard the rest of their conversation as she felt her body being pulled up and out the door, into the passenger seat of a car, and driven away.

“My hotel,” Blossom muttered, her face pressed to the glass.

“No way. You’re coming home and that’s final. Really, why didn’t you just come home in the first place…”

Blossom’s eyes followed the grey, wet city passing her by as Bubbles spoke softly, streetlights and smog, the red-painted suspension bridge that whined under the weight of cars. For the life of her, she couldn’t remember why she hadn’t just gone home. For years, she hadn’t been able to remember that.

She passed out just as they cleared the bridge and passed the colorful ‘Welcome to Townsville’ sign on the side of the freeway.

Getting a substitute teacher for twenty kindergarteners with less than 24 hours advance notice was impossible even for Bubbles, former Superhero and current employee of the month at Pokey Oaks Elementary School. She felt awful leaving Blossom home alone in the state she was in, but it couldn’t be helped. With any luck, she’d sleep in through the hangover. Bubbles left her a handwritten note on the fridge telling her what time she’d be home, the Wifi password, and a drawing of a smiling elephant. A post script simply read Please don’t leave. Bubbles hoped the message would get through to her impossibly stubborn sister.

She faced her kids and her day with a bright smile on her face, pulled her short, blonde hair into low pigtails, and busted out the finger paint.

Hours later, she flew home as fast as she could and all but broke the door clean off its hinges in her eagerness to get inside. “Blossom? Are you here?”

There was no answer, but she heard movement upstairs. Sighing in relief, she slumped against the kitchen counter and allowed herself a moment to breathe. She pulled out her phone and checked her messages. Nothing from Buttercup, to her extreme annoyance. Hadn’t she gotten all Bubbles’ texts and voicemails yesterday? The least she could do was reply.

There was, however, a text from Boomer.

[Boomer: You girls make it back to Townsville okay?]

She bit her lip to hide a smile.

[Bubbles: You worried about me?]

[Boomer: Am I allowed to be?]

She stared at her phone, not sure how to respond to that. She and Boomer had been down this path many times before, and somehow they always lost their way. Sometimes she wanted it that way, but there was only so much she could take before life found her again, or his brothers found him. Old habits died hard.

[Boomer: Obviously I know you can handle yourself. I just meant Blossom seemed pretty upset last night. Scared the shit out of me tbh. Reds have that temper you know…]

Bubbles sighed. Another moment missed. Oh well.

[Bubbles: She’s just going through a bad time. Sorry you got caught in the middle.]

[Boomer: It’s okay. Good excuse to call you 😘 ]

Bubbles shook her head. “Oh Boomer…”

[Boomer: She sticking around this time?]

[Bubbles: I don’t know.]

[Bubbles: I really hope so.]

[Boomer: I know.]

I know you do.

Bubbles tapped his contact. Her thumb hovered over the call button, but she hesitated. As much as it would be nice to hear his voice, she wasn’t ready to let them fall back into old habits. Especially not with Blossom back in the picture in the state she was in. Family came first, always and forever. Like Boomer, Bubbles had never forgotten that promise.

[Bubbles: I have to go.]

[Boomer: Okay.]

She bit her lip hard enough to hurt, but pocketed her phone all the same and headed upstairs to find Blossom. She wasn’t in the spare bedroom Bubbles had made up for her, though the bed was neatly made and the pillows carefully fluffed. Yesterday’s clothes were tucked out of sight in a hamper, the bath towel perfectly folded and hung. Bubbles couldn’t help but smile at the orderly sight. Some things would never change.

She found Blossom on the floor in the Professor’s old bedroom just sitting there with her knees folded to her chest and a framed picture of their family all together the day of high school graduation. Her hair was long and loose over Bubbles’ borrowed clothes. The grey bedspread was covered in a thin layer of dust, and the room smelled faintly of stale musk, like the window had been closed for too long. A collared shirt and blue tie sat on the chestnut dresser, perfectly folded like the day they had been placed there, untouched.

Bubbles bit her tongue, and her heart rate spiked. It had been a long time since she’d last set foot in this room. Slowly, she stepped across the threshold. Blossom didn’t even look at her as she stared at the family picture.

In silence, Bubbles carefully sank down on the green throw rug next to her sister, close enough to feel her warmth. She didn’t say anything, and neither did Blossom. They just sat there together looking at themselves smiling for the camera, their arms around Buttercup and their father like they were really, truly happy.

“Do you ever wish you could go back?” Blossom asked after a while.

Bubbles looked at her, but Blossom was still watching the picture of them, as if it was the only thing that existed. “To high school?”

“To naïveté.”

Bubbles laid a hand over Blossom’s. “I miss him too.”

“I miss his love.” Blossom closed her eyes, which were red-rimmed like she’d been crying. “I don’t think anyone in the world will ever love me like he did.”

“Oh, Blossom.” Bubbles couldn’t help her own tears as she clutched her sister’s hand like she used to do when they were little and she was afraid of the dark and Blossom always knew how to be brave enough for the both of them. “I love you.”

She sniffled and felt her tears fall, and Blossom pulled her close in a hug. “I know you do.”

Bubbles wished more than anything that it could be enough.

Running personal errands for her estranged sister who just decided to show up again out of the blue was the icing on the fuck-this-day cake. Buttercup did not have time to play Task Rabbit when she had an actual job to do.

Trevor the receptionist looked like he was about to piss his pants at the sight of her and her basketball star of a partner.

Buttercup flashed her gold Citiesville Police Department badge. “Look, just give me a spare key card so I can get my sister’s crap and get the hell out of here.” 

“R-Right away, Officer!” 

“It’s Detective. And relax, I’m not going to eat you.”

Beside her Ty laughed, rich and throaty and warm. “Don’t worry, kid, she won’t. I just watched her put away a half pounder with Animal Fries. You’re safe.”

Trevor wasn’t even listening anymore as he fumbled to copy a new card key for the two detectives and tossed it to Buttercup like a hot potato. Grumbling curses, Buttercup trudged up the stairs to Blossom’s room, found her unpacked suitcase at the foot of the bed, and valiantly resisted the urge to hurl it out the window.

Ty waited for her back in the lobby. “Got it?”

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s just get out of here before I change my mind.”

The partners made for a comical sight exiting the Marigold. Ty towered over her with the grace and presence of an old world god. Cut like a diamond and bald on purpose, he was a commanding sight to behold. Next to him, Buttercup appeared small and mortal with her heart-shaped face, compact athletic build, and dark hair professionally tucked into a ballerina’s bun.

The Celebrities, their CPD colleagues had dubbed them, mostly facetiously. Ty still got recognized from time to time despite his short-lived stint in the NBA before a bad knee injury ended his fledgling career. Ironically, his face and stature tended to attract more recognition than Buttercup’s. To those who did recognize her, though, it wasn’t her killer resting bitch face that had them quaking where they stood.

“So, you heading to Townsville, then?” Ty asked as they walked around the block to their parked sedan.

“If I don’t, I’ll never hear the end of it. Might as well just get it over with.”

“I think it’s nice you got your family all together for once. What’s it been, three years?”

“Four and change.” Buttercup hopped off the curb and headed for the trunk of the car. Her sharp, green eyes alighted on a group of men loitering outside a bar smoking weed. A couple of them watched her, but she ignored them.

Ty whistled. “Not even a birthday card?”

“Not even a lousy birthday card.” Not that she’d ever bothered to send Blossom a birthday card either, but that was completely beside the point.

Buttercup popped the trunk and pulled out a worn jean jacket. At least the trip to Townsville could serve some functional purpose in returning the jacket to Bubbles a month late.

The men continued to watch her out of the corner of her eye. One flicked the glowing, orange butt of his blunt on the ground and snuffed it out with his booted toe.

“Well, the way I see it, you got four belated birthdays to celebrate all at once,” Ty said. “You sure you don’t want me to cover you tomorrow? Should be a pretty routine house call.”

Buttercup donned the jean jacket over her button down blouse. It smelled like stale smoke and coconut shampoo. She wrinkled her nose. “No, I’ll be there, so you better not start without me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, partner.”

Missing persons cases were always depressing considering how few of them were ever resolved with a happy ending. The guy missing was just a kid, Danny Chang, a Freshman at Citiesville Community College. Buttercup had taken the case just this morning upon a personal request from the kid’s mother, said she wouldn’t talk to anyone but Buttercup. As if she could work some miracle the other, far more seasoned detectives of the CPD couldn’t.

Then again, she couldn’t fault the woman her blind hope. It had taken years and many failures for Buttercup to understand that some problems could not be solved with fists and fury alone.

Blossom would be so proud, she thought bitterly.

Ty ducked into the driver’s seat of the sedan, and Buttercup retreated to the sidewalk with Blossom’s roller bag in tow. She pulled out her phone to call a Lyft, and Ty waved as he drove away back to the station.

“Hey girl, you lookin’ for company?”

Buttercup didn’t bother looking up at the lanky guy slinking toward her. His buddies watched, still smoking and talking softly. “Aren’t we all.”

“How ‘bout we look together?”

Buttercup looked up from her phone to tell the guy to move along, she could not be less interested in hooking up with some strung out townie, when she was met with the glint of steel. The guy smiled down at her over the edge of a switchblade.

She sighed, bored. “You really don’t want to do that.”

He nodded at her phone, like he expected her to hand it over. “Nah, man, I'm chillin'. So how ‘bout you just be a cool girl?”

Buttercup’s eye twitched. What was she just thinking about problems and fists? It all seemed a bit fuzzy now. “Last chance, asshole. Walk away.”

The asshole didn’t appreciate his new nickname. The weed made him persistent. “Hey, hey, don't be like that. I just wanna hang out—”

Buttercup let him grab her wrist and squeeze hard enough to force her to drop her phone. At least, it would have been hard enough if she were anyone else. There was a moment of confusion on his face, a split second where his mind and his body told him conflicting information about the short woman below him with a wrist made of steel. Then she grabbed his switchblade with her bare hand.

“Sure, let's hang.” She snapped the blade as if it were made of plastic.

Unfortunately for the asshole, pride and pot joined forces against his sense of self-preservation in the face of something he didn’t understand. He heaved against her, intending to use his superior height and weight to knock her down. Buttercup glared up at him and shoved him hard.

He went flying.

The other guys who’d been watching this all go down ducked and scrambled when he went sailing through them, knocking a few over before the concrete wall broke his fall with a sickening thud. Groaning, the asshole trembled on the ground as his buddies stared.

“Shit, man, I think she’s—”

“Whatever, let’s just get outta here!” 

Buttercup dialed 9-1-1 and left a terse message with the operator about a bar fight gone too far. Flashing her badge, she strode purposefully to the three remaining men, one of whom was hunched over the asshole still groaning on the ground.

“Names,” she demanded.

“W-We didn’t do anything—”

The guy shut up quick when he saw Buttercup’s fist begin to glow with unnatural green energy.

“Names. Now.”

They gave her their names.

“EMTs are on their way. You make sure your friend here stays awake. He probably has a concussion.”

“Y-You’re not gonna book us?”

Buttercup smoothed a flyaway that had come loose from her bun. The asshole watched her through bloodshot eyes, dazed and far away. She looked down on him in disgust. “Lucky for you morons, I have somewhere to be.”

She stalked off to get Blossom’s suitcase sitting on the sidewalk and cast the men a last, bored glance. “You pull this kinda shit again, and I won’t be wearing my badge next time.”

They just watched her, dumbstruck.

That’s right, peons, she thought to herself, letting the old, angry pride warm her blood. Take a fucking knee.

She hoisted Blossom’s suitcase over her shoulder and left them like that. Ambulance sirens whined in the distance, but Buttercup was long gone.

Bubbles cooked dinner that night, and Blossom wished she could be happier about it. Of the three sisters, Blossom had always enjoyed cooking the least. Wei had been just as averse to cooking as she was, and so they had turned takeout into a kind of art form to be mastered and managed. Creatures of habit and routine, they had mapped out Metroville’s best restaurants by price, quality, and ambience. The wall-sized map they’d drawn and marked with all their top picks was still in the apartment they shared (used to share) just off the kitchen they hardly ever used—

“Blossom, did you hear me?” Bubbles called from the kitchen.

“What?” Blossom looked up from the dishes she’d been washing on autopilot.

“I asked if you could get the door. You didn’t hear the bell?”

Blossom shut off the water and dried her hands. “I guess not.”

Bubbles looked at her with a sad, contemplative sort of understanding. Thankfully, she didn’t press, and Blossom answered  the door. The sight of Buttercup standing on the welcome mat should not have come as much of a surprise, but there was something inexplicably surreal about seeing her there in an old jean jacket, her hair pulled out of her eyes, and a forty-pound suitcase draped casually over her shoulder.

For a moment, neither sister said anything as they looked each other over.

“Did you fly here?” Blossom asked, noticing the lack of any unfamiliar car parked in the driveway.

Buttercup tensed, an age-old defensive reflex whenever Blossom questioned her about every little thing she did. “Why the hell wouldn’t I?”

Blossom might have pointed out that there was a ban on the use of powers within Citiesville city limits, had been for years since the three Super sisters had accidentally blown up the Golden Bay Bridge in pursuit of a group of robbers.

And yet, Blossom could not think of an answer to Buttercup’s rhetorical question. There was no reason at all that she, of all people, wouldn’t use her powers. Blossom pursed her lips and simply nodded. She stepped aside for Buttercup and locked the door behind her.

Dinner was awkward.

Unspoken between the sisters was an agreement about what not to talk about. Which was just fine with Buttercup; she wasn’t the one who’d disappeared after the funeral with nothing but a half-assed apology over the phone a week later.

Not that Buttercup called many people herself over the years either, but that was neither here nor there.

I call Bubbles.

More like Bubbles called her. Still, that counted. And they made a point to spend holidays together. Even the occasional weekend when Buttercup wasn’t balls deep in work. It was more than she could say for most of the other detectives in her precinct, and it was certainly more than she could say for Blossom.

“You look good,” Blossom said as she poked at her risotto. “Happy, I mean.”

Buttercup leaned back in her chair. “Yeah, it’s all rainbows and sunshine over at CPD Homicide.”

Bubbles winced. She didn’t like it when they talked about Buttercup’s morbid line of work.

“Fulfilled, then.”

Buttercup shifted in her seat. “It pays the bills and puts the bad guys behind bars. Sometimes.”

Blossom smiled faintly, like it was a struggle for her to manage even that much. She really looked terrible—too pale, too tired, too done with everything. “You can take the Powerpuff Girl out of Townsville.”

Buttercup stiffened at the mention of their old shared moniker. It had been a very long time since anyone referred to them as the Powerpuff Girls. Hell, Buttercup hadn’t heard the name at all in years. It was in the past—the team, the fighting, the girl power, the memories, the family… All of it.

“Don’t know about that,” Buttercup said, an edge to her tone that hadn’t been there before.

Bubbles got up. “Who wants dessert? I have ice cream!” She dashed to the freezer and began pulling out pint after pint of ice cream.

Buttercup took a swig of her beer. “I gotta say, I never expected you to sell out to corporate in the end.”

Blossom abandoned her cold risotto. “Like you said, it pays the bills.”

“Bullshit.”

“I have cookies ’n cream, double fudge chunk, and…oooh! Strawberry balsamic!” 

Blossom and Buttercup ignored their sister.

“I’m not going to argue with you,” Blossom said softly. “That’s not why I’m here.”

“Why are you here?”

“Um, Buttercup! How many scoops do you want?” 

“I mean, four years is a fuck-long time to stay away. Not that I blame you for getting out—hell, so did I—but I never ran.”

Blossom stared back at Buttercup, dead-eyed and tense. “I wasn’t running.”

“No? What do you call showing up back here unannounced out of the blue, then? Who died this time?”

Bubbles slammed a stack of bowls roughly on the table, startling both Blossom and Buttercup. “That’s enough.”

“No one died.” Blossom rose out of her chair. “Sorry you made the trip out for nothing.”

“Blossom, wait,” Bubbles said.

But Blossom walked out of the kitchen and disappeared upstairs. And that was just fine with Buttercup. She snagged the cookies ’n cream pint and a spoon and floated to the living room.

“Buttercup—”

“Save it. She wants to fucking mope like a prima donna after ghosting us for four years? She can do it alone.”

Bubbles followed her to the living room just as Buttercup found the remote sitting next to a picture of the girls and Professor Utonium at the beach back when they were five. She scowled at the grinning faces and waited for the Hulu app to load.

“I know you’re upset with her, but she’s been through a lot.”

Buttercup ate a large scoop of ice cream and selected the latest Halloween movie to watch. “You’re something else, you know that? Like, do you hear yourself?”

Bubbles floated in front of the television, arms crossed. “She just got dumped by her two-timing fiancé and quit her job because she couldn’t bear to be in the same city as him anymore. We’re family. Whatever our issues are, we’re supposed to be there for each other.”

Buttercup was on her feet so fast she was nothing but a green blur. “Tell me something. Where was she when we needed her?”

“We all process grief differently.”

“I’m not one of your kindergarteners. You and I both know there’s a wrong way to process, and she’s been wrong for four fucking years.”

“I know she made a mistake. But it doesn’t mean she doesn’t deserve our help now.”

“Whatever. She’s your baby bird to help, then. Don’t involve me.” Buttercup fell back on the couch, pulled up her feet, and dug into her ice cream pint as the opening credits rolled. “Move, I can’t see.”

Bubbles sighed her exasperation, but she let her hand rest on Buttercup’s shoulder. “Thank you for coming tonight. I know it’s hard for you.” She floated back toward the kitchen.

“Hey, it’s not your job to carry her. She can fly the same as you or me.”

Bubbles’ reply was so soft that, were it not for Buttercup’s Super hearing, she would have missed it. “I’m not so sure.”

Buttercup was determined not to let it get to her. Just being in this house set her on edge, always had ever since the car accident four years ago. It had ceased to be a home and simply existed as walls and a roof, a shell lacking the color and warmth of her childhood. Buttercup had never known it was possible for a home to stop being a home until she stepped inside after the Professor’s funeral and didn’t recognize the plaster. Bubbles had locked herself in the girls’ old bedroom and sobbed all day and night.

Blossom had not come home at all at first. They’d searched for her for days to no avail.

Michael Myers was stalking across the screen and a high school boy was screaming in the background. Buttercup forced herself to indulge the distraction from those uncomfortable memories, the blood and bodies on screen passing in a monotonous blur.

Eventually she paused to use the bathroom and floated silently across the living room. On her way back to the couch, her Super hearing picked up voices upstairs, and she stilled. They were too faint to make out the words, and Buttercup had no reason to care either way. Bubbles was going to waste away one of these days from giving away so much of her love to people who couldn’t or wouldn’t properly return it.

And goddamnit, but Buttercup couldn’t abide that.

She floated upstairs to the guest room’s closed door. Light filtered from under the crack at the bottom. This close, and Buttercup could hear them talking softly. Or rather, she could hear Bubbles talking. Soothing, understanding Bubbles who just wanted to help her sister. Buttercup clenched a fist.

She thought about bursting in there, about the look on her sisters’ faces if she did. She thought about demanding an explanation, just a single reason for all of it. Because surely there was one. Surely Blossom, the eldest and the team leader and the most put-together of the three of them, had her reasons.

Buttercup pressed her ear to the door.

“More than anything, it just feels surreal. That someone so…fragile could do me so much damage,” Blossom said in a neutral tone that did not match her miserable confession. “I’ve faced monsters, masterminds, even the devil himself, and none of them hurt me as much as he did.”

“It’s not your fault,” Bubbles said.

Blossom didn’t seem to hear her as she spoke from a deeply buried place inside, cold and hollow. “And I let him. I let him hurt me.” Shuffling, and sniffling. “I think I wanted him to hurt me just so I knew he could, and I could be…”

More shuffling. Buttercup imagined Bubbles holding Blossom close in a hug as they sat together at the foot of the bed, just like they had when they were little and Buttercup listened furtively from around the corner.

“I tried so hard to be normal,” Blossom sobbed.

“I know, shh, shh.” 

Buttercup had heard enough. She floated back downstairs, suddenly restless and wide awake. The movie was paused on a scene where the killer was emerging from the shadows to surprise his unwitting victim. The cookies ’n cream was softly melting in the half-empty pint. Buttercup was struck with the overwhelming urge to hurl the pint at the wall and watch the sweet treat spoil.

“I don’t care.”

I don’t.

She sank back onto the couch and resumed the movie. The too-soft ice cream dripped off her spoon, but she ate it anyway. Her family grinned at her in the beach picture, their preserved happiness stale and a little sad. Their eyes seemed to watch her, and Buttercup thought about turning the picture around so she wouldn’t have to look at it anymore. She didn’t even remember taking the picture all those years ago, or the laughter that had inspired her toothy grin.

It’s just a dumb old picture.

She shoveled more ice cream in her mouth, her tongue long since numbed to the flavor, and watched the grisly final act of her movie.

The picture remained perched where it was, softly watching over her until the end credits rolled.