Chapter Text
“What the fuck is this?” I carefully gestured at the airborne dog only a few feet from my face. “Time’s been stopping when we have these chats, is that it?”
“Eh, too soon to tell," my doppelgänger said. "You’re not so smooth that you can manage accidentally shoplifting in front of a cashier, true, but that first time just as easily could have been because your brain got thrown at concrete. Let’s not jump to conclusions.”
“Confounding variable, then. I’m very stressed out right now, same as when I was worried about how to pay and when you first showed up.”
He laughed. “What a shitshow. Guess it’s up to you to figure that one out. If I’m a hallucination I’m just saying what you want me to, anyways.”
“Hmm.” I nodded at the table. “What do you see from over there?”
“What do I-” His eyes widened. “Oh, you clever girl.” He hopped off the couch and tried to grab a paper from the coffee table. After his hands achieved nothing, he resigned himself to reading the page it was open to. “…in an interview last week, the manager of the Ruby Dreams Casino claimed that the recent heist conducted…”
He beckoned for me to come over, and I scanned the page he was on: In an interview last week…
“Well?”
“You read words I couldn’t! Congratulations, you’re real.”
“Maybe. What’s going on here, then? Time stops, I show up, I’m a… Master projection? Perhaps you have clairvoyance, and I’m merely a figment of the imagination of a madman trying to abstract an understanding of his power.” He shrugged.
“You certainly look better than I could imagine.”
“You’re a charmer, you know that?”
“No, I mean how the hell could I imagine you? I can’t even visualize a cube in my head, much less rotate it, or whatever the hell everyone else always brags about doing.”
“Well, it’s affirming to know I’m somewhat real. So you’re discount Othello and I’m the equally charming mirror-man?”
I looked behind me. “Perhaps not entirely ‘discount,’ if there’s the whole…” Dog frozen in mid-air.
“Point taken. Next order of business, why does time resume? You should probably figure that out soon, preferably while sitting where you were.”
Begrudgingly, I returned to the danger seat. I didn’t want to reveal this information so soon, especially if I just claimed I one-hundred percent did not have powers. “There’s still the problem of the dog next to-” I looked back up where my friend was before, but he was already gone. Ah, fuck.
I raised my right arm as fast as possible and was immediately greeted by pain shooting through it, all while shouting filled the room. Better option than my face, at least. One second I was thinking, I always have months where nothing happens, and then for a few seconds everything goes wrong and there’s never time to think things through! Another second later, the connection to my power became clear. There was no time to properly ruminate on the matter—I had just spent my ‘extra time’ chatting with my other self—but there was an instant of wordless elation. Followed immediately after by a few somewhat cogent thoughts: “Am I allowed to punch a dog if it’s self defense?” “I must look like an idiot right now,” and “Floor incoming, don’t break your wrist AGAIN.”
Too many things filled up my brain, and I had no idea what happened in the last few seconds. Perhaps I parried a dog, against all odds? It was more likely that I panicked, activated every muscle available, and prayed something useful resulted from it. I ended up on the floor, looking up, and not in the process of losing an arm, so it appears whatever action I took worked.
“Fuck!” was my immediate reaction to the situation. Usually, relaxing on the ground was a terrible option in a normal fight, but I was still rebuilding perception of my surroundings and didn’t want to risk disorienting myself trying to stand up.
“What the fuck?” Brian shouted.
“You good there?”
“Hm? Oh, uh, yeah.” I looked down at my arm which, while not bleeding profusely, was still bleeding from the bite of a dog that almost certainly did not have stellar dental hygiene. “Maybe not. Glad I just got my rabies shot.”
“My dogs don’t have rabies,” Rachel said. The neutral tone somehow felt more angry than if she shouted.
Lisa grabbed my attention. She pushed off the couch to return to full height, then pointed at the doorway. “Come with me for a moment.”
Saying ‘no’ didn’t appear to be an option. Time to face the music. Following her gesture, I led the way into the stairwell.
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“I take it we aren’t heading to an infirmary,” I commented.
From a few paces behind, Lisa guided me across a catwalk to a lifeless roof deck overlooking the concrete lot outside. She now stood between me and the doorway I just exited through, and I noted there were no other ways off this ugly industrial terrace. Well, one other way. Two stories was easily survivable, but I much preferred my legs intact.
“Is something wrong?” I asked, knowing damn well something was wrong.
It’s a terrible first question when someone is angry at you, but better that than incriminate myself if it wasn’t about what I thought it might be.
“You’re about to jump to conclusions, and I would really appreciate if you didn’t do that,” I said as I walked across the grated floor panels towards the edge. “In fact, just tune out your power altogether and-”
I stopped at the click of metal on metal, and didn’t dare turn around to face her. There’s a chance that’s not a gun! I affirmed, but I wasn’t feeling very confident in that belief.
“Turn around.”
I complied. Yup, that is a gun. How about that.
“You said you didn’t have powers.”
“That was my understanding at the time.”
“But you didn’t trigger in the last five minutes.”
“Correct.”
“So you want me to believe you didn’t know-" She blinked. "Wait, you’re serious? You didn’t know?”
“Yes.”
“You only now found out you had powers?”
I groaned. “Yes.”
“That’s hilarious, how is that even possible? Did you trigger this morning?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh.” It appears we’re shifting from being mocked to being pitied. “Oh! Eleven o’clock: Got a wave of vertigo that made me trip and fall down the stairs, probably along with half the other capes in the bay. Thanks for that, by the way, I’m never going to hear the end of it.”
“I’ll try to be more careful next time.”
“Funny.” She lowered the gun slightly. Progress! “Let me get this straight: You trigger, your first course of action is to find us. Then, you find our base and immediately get comfortable. Suspicious, but not damning. Maybe you’re a fan, for some reason. Maybe it’s coincidence, and maybe you’re just this friendly with everyone. But then? You’re attacked, and you go and do something with those powers. The others might not have noticed it, but I sure did. What’s the power?”
I frowned. “Need-to-know.” Nothing against Lisa, but if she knows, then certain other people will know…
“I’m asking nicely,” she said. I didn’t entirely believe it. “Tell me.”
“Remember when I said there’s things I really can’t say? We’re dealing with infohazards, here.” I paused. “Er, stuff that even knowing about it poses a risk to-”
“I get the gist of it,” she interrupted. “You already used up your one free ‘don’t ask about it’ card. I’ll be the judge of what I should and shouldn’t know.”
“No?” There was a sardonic chuckle. “Look, operational security and all that jazz.” Full laughter. “Give me one moment to think?”
“Power. What is it? Some Stranger effect? Teleportation?”
Dammit, fine. “I can stop time.”
“Huh. Well that’s certainly useful.” She cocked her head. “Why do you look like that? You answered the question and yet… you’re still scared of something, aren’t you?”
“Who isn’t?”
“Hah! This is fantastic, I went fishing for one secret and found two! There’s no way I’m letting this go now. Come on, spill.”
“No, just- I’m being for real this time, for everyone’s sake you have to trust me on this! Look me in the eyes and, I don’t know, read how trustworthy I can be? If I say-”
“Now!” She readjusted her grip on the pistol.
“Okay. Shit, this whole thing may have been a mistake. By making me talk about this you’re really, ah… constricting… our options here.” Did Coil have a specific snake for his theme? Surely it was some kind of constrictor. No self-respecting villain would have used a garden snake, right?
“Huh?”
I winced. “Because anything I tell you is info that then… he…”
Her eyes were suddenly very alert. Short of any better method to communicate the issue, I molded my expression into something which said ‘yeah, sorry about that, but how am I supposed to warn you about a thing I can’t warn you about?’ If anyone could pick up such a level of nuance, it would be her. I hoped, at least. Maybe I just looked like an inebriated deer and she was mirroring my expression to go along with the bit. Eventually, her attention returned to me.
“Ah.” She sighed. “Fuck. Fuck!”
“All good out there?” Brian’s voice came from the doorway.
“Great!” Lisa shouted back. She took a step towards me and lowered her voice. “Confirm this for me? If you’re insinuating what I think you are—and Jesus Christ I hope you aren’t—then saying so outright isn’t going to fuck us over any more than we already are.”
“I was insinuating that any information you learn from or about me we can assume will be given to Coil for free the next time he decides to torture you to death.”
“God fucking-” She looked prepared to throw the gun either at the wall, me, or as hard as possible to try and land it in the dumpster across the lot from us. After a moment, rationality prevailed and she placed the gun down. Rationality then stopped prevailing when she decided to punch the brick wall instead. “Dammit!”
“Yeah,” I sighed.
“Why the fuck did you tell me that?”
“You were going to shoot me!”
“I was threatening to shoot you, moron.”
“That’s not-”
“We’re sure everything’s okay?” Brian stepped out from the stairwell, glanced at us, and glanced at what I really hoped were not broken metacarpals on Lisa’s hand. Hands down, worst bones to break. Er, not hands down… ugh.
“Yep!” Lisa chirped, “Our jobs just got this much more fun!” She threw her hands out dramatically, startling Brian.
“Right. So you and Clover hashed things out then, or whatever that was?”
“Totally! Nothing more to talk about. Let’s go back inside. Now.”
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As we returned to the loft, it seemed we both silently agreed to ignore the inquisitive looks Alec and Brian were giving us. Rachel couldn’t care less. I sat down in what I was already starting to think of as my ‘designated seat.’ What was I supposed to do, pick a completely different one? ‘Was there an issue with that one?’ No thank you, this seat is just fine.
Lisa clapped her hands together. “Good news, everybody, we have a new teammate!”
Alec looked between her, me, and the rictus of anxiety on my face. “So, we’re not getting a butler?”
“Nope, even better: Clovey here can stop time!”
“Oh god, please not ‘Clovey.’” My mind processed the second half of the statement a moment later. “Wait what the fuck you can’t tell them-”
“Now we’re even!” She flashed a grin which disappeared as soon as she looked towards me. “Whatever I know, they also need to know.” ‘Because otherwise the stories won’t line up’ went unsaid.
I wasn’t sure whether to be more stressed about the reminder that I just threw my life onto the roulette wheel that was the Brockton Bay cape scene, or the fact that me and Lisa were likely going to be keeping up this mentally taxing doublespeak in front of everyone for the foreseeable future.
“Uh, Lisa?” Brian asked. “You confirmed before that he didn’t have a power.”
“He didn’t think he had a power!”
“You’re sure? He’s not… y’know…”
I turned around to look at both of them. “Guys, you are so lucky I’m not a Master. You can’t even take ten seconds to exclude me from the conversation where you openly wonder if I’m Mastering you?”
“I was actually going to say, what if he’s just lying?” Brian asked. “You remember the last time someone was really cagey about it and everyone assumed they had powers?”
“Brian, I think she’s fucking with us,” Alec said.
“I’m not.” Lisa gestured to me, “Go on, do the thing.”
“But I can’t-”
“You just said you could!”
“Not on command!” I yelled. I turned away and mumbled, “I think its just when I get stressed.”
Lisa fought valiantly to not laugh but ultimately failed, causing Alec and Rachel to crack as well. Brian was bewildered more than anything as he looked between me and Lisa, possibly trying to deduce if this was an elaborate joke.
“There wasn’t a time skip or anything out of place when I pulled the gun on you. What happened then?”
“You pulled a gun on him?”
“Maybe there’s a cool-down period?” I suggested. “I don’t know! I learned about this the same time you did!”
Lisa pinched her nose in disappointment. “So… he can stop time when he gets scared. Occasionally. Maybe.”
Alec chuckled and I glowered at him. “It might be more useful than it sounds, okay?”
“Sure,” he said.
I closed my eyes for a moment, half hoping time would stop again so I could come up with a proper comeback. Time continued anyway. “I get stressed somewhat easily. For example. I was stressing over how to buy food earlier and, before I knew it,” I snapped my fingers. “Time stop. I walked out of there without paying.”
“You’re saying you forgot to pay for groceries.”
“I’m saying I think this can be a useful thing.”
“If you can activate it.”
“Obviously, that’s what I’m going to try and find out!” I said, exasperated. “So, does this mean I get a promotion? I’m a full-timer now?”
“We’ll see how you perform and take things from there.”
“That doesn’t sound entirely fair. Do I at least get hazard pay?”
“We’re villains, Clover. What are you gonna do, call the Department of Labor?”
I sighed. “Whatever. Can I get my arm fixed now?” I waved the slightly-chewed limb in front of me.
“So dramatic!” Lisa said. “Here, we’ve got better supplies than your little pharmacy bag, give me a moment.” What’s wrong with the bag?
Lisa sat beside me and produced a bottle of… something? I squinted. Oh, come on!
“Woah, hydrogen peroxide? Such barbaric methods in the year of our lord twenty-” Don’t say twenty-six “-eleven?”
“Yes?”
“It kills the healthy flesh.”
She rolled her eyes. “And it kills the stuff that’s going to want to infect you.”
“Just wash it out with saline? Then there’s nothing that can spread an infection. It’s a little saliva, not anthrax.” I swear, how do people live so long?
“Do you want to do it instead?” she asked.
“If you don’t mind.”
She scowled, took away the peroxide, and left the rest of the contents of a first-aid kit by my side. Content that I didn’t appear to be making a fuss over getting mauled by a dog (keyword appear), the group returned to a more comfortable state. Rachel sulked in the corner, pretending to be uninterested but still obviously within conversing distance. Brian retreated to the kitchen when it was clear he wouldn’t need to break up any fights or confiscate any firearms, and Alec and Lisa kicked back on the couches.
I just started the ‘remove glass from my clothes’ project, and it was already getting displaced by the higher-priority arm repair. How does anyone have time to do anything? I sighed and continued cleaning out the wound. The last thing I needed was for it to get infected and letting a certain someone say ‘I told you so.’