Sir Lurksalot

Heroes Reborn: Year Six (OPEN)

0250 HRS
Rooftop Outside Aquarius Apartments, Bazaar Quarter, Poseidonis

Had the visor of his prometheum helmet not been in the way, Mal would have rubbed at his eyes. As it stood a little grunt as he shifted his legs slightly to attempt to find some comfortable position to stay in in this armour that was just tight enough to be uncomfortable would have to suffice.

Stakeout duty was always just so much fun.

Having spent the better part of a few hours now crouched in silence (by sheer virtue of running out of things to talk about) with the invisible and avowedly incognito (and possibly napping) King of the Ocean Cuttlefish to his right, a growing pile of empty vessels of the Atlantean equivalent of canned coffee his 'partner' grabbed out of a vending machine from the street below to his left and a whole bunch of other people having fun across the street to his front, Malcolm allowed his mind to wander just a bit. Despite his best efforts.

Some kid wearing a lampshade as a makeshift loincloth was dancing the samba atop some expensive-looking furniture to the amusement for a few girls and the chagrin of a pair of burly, well-dressed and overly-cologned gentlemen who abruptly showed him the door.

An older, professor-looking bloke was seated in a hot-tub smoking some form of herb even he didn't recognize with his students.

A particularly amorous local woman seemed to be chatting up everything on two legs at the bar.

'...When was the last time I actually went out to a party, anyway?'

He racked his powerful brain for answers... and came up depressingly dry. Not a good sign for a guy literally incapable of forgetting anything.

Sure, he sat around and hung out with Irene and Anatoly once in a while back in Gotham, but that hardly counted. Neither did those fancy dinners he had to go to as Zoey's ward, constrained with formality and having to pretend to be some high-society schmuck and all.

It was around the time that Karen and Ophelia began to dance, and sing along to the music playing in that fancy-ass penthouse that the growing momentum of the boy's thoughts abruptly struck an epiphany.

'...Holy shit, I have no life.'

A morose chuckle met that realization as he shook his head slightly, stomping that feeling down and going back to dutifully eyeing up the goings-on of a bunch of people having way more fun than him.

Y'know, typical Mal stuff.

But for the life of him, he wasn't exactly seeing anything particularly nefarious going on. Sleazy maybe, but not nefarious.

Hell, the most eye-catching thing to his increasingly distracted mind going on in there right now was that Atlantean woman from earlier had found someone, a college girl, to get to know better at the bar... who seemed to be having a good time with all that attention.

The armour-clad teen's gaze abruptly halted at the sight, his brow furrowing beneath his helmet.

'Waaaaaaiitaminute...'

She was having a real good time.

Her body was pumping out endorphins and adrenaline at a rate that really shouldn't have been possible with the three strawberry daiquiris in her gut while the neurons in her brain were slowing down to a crawl in a fashion that really shouldn't have been possible by alcohol alone.

The end result? A girl who was probably a ninety pounds soaking wet with a head full of braces and clearly-a-nerd syndrome having the energy in that moment to run a triathlon end-to-end at a dead sprint also too sedate and placid from the chemical cocktail in her brain to remember her own goddamn name.

"...What the hell?"

Mal got his answer, it seemed, as a capsule slid down the barely-cognizant girl's throat via the other woman's tongue. To meet with the two others he hadn't noticed were already in her stomach.

Right around the time her immune-system began to shut down. And some hazy, non-physical force he couldn't quite identify slowly began to pulse through her veins with greater and greater force.

Standing up slightly, the Watchdog's eyes scanned the rest of the room for more people in similar states of disarray, finding at least half a dozen other girls starting to at least show signs of what that unfortunate young miss at the bar was going through. Slower, perhaps due to a lower dosage.

'Well, shit.'

"Karen. Not to ruin your little tango with Ophelia there, but I'm seeing at least six girls in the building with ya who seem to be on the precipice of one hell of a trip. Each with a pill in their gut." He stated into his earpiece, quietly chiming Orin CAPTAIN CUTTLEFISH into the call as he did so. "That geeky kid at the bar whose been swapping spit with the fancy local lady for the past half-hour has at least three in her and looks ready to drop."

'Mako' shot his invisible-to-everyone-else partner in crime fighting a quick glance as he adjusted the straps on his wrist-mounted grapple, a slight edge coming to his voice.

"That serial lip-mauler has a pocket full of those pills, probably your best bet to get a sample. And get that girl some air."

Heroes Reborn: Year Six (OPEN)

11:15 PM
Rooftops, Bazaar Quarter, Poseidonis

’The more things change the more they stay the same…’ Mal couldn’t help but muse in the confines of his own head, even while rolling to make his landing on yet another industrialized-coral rooftop.

Different city, different continent, hell, even different barometric pressure and here he was jumping from rooftop in some swanky-ass armour like a complete jackass.

If nothing else, Mal’s life was consistent.

A quick glance below through the building found Mal skidding slightly and taking a hard left, vaulting off another ledge and landing with practiced quiet on top of one of Poseidonis’ many public hover-trams. Lingering there for a moment or two as it rounded a turn and firing off his grapple towards another rooftop to keep up with his quarry, both of whom were currently sharing oxygen with the three Spanish gentlemen he’d observed in the club in the confines of a hovercar he couldn’t miss, even if he wanted to- What with the pulsing music from within forming a sort of rippling effect across his vision and what registered to even his eyes as a particularly gaudy bioluminescent paintjob.

Another grunt escaped him as he made landfall on what he could only assume would be his final destination if everything went according to plan.

...Mostly because this armour, paradoxically ancient in design but so far ahead of anything on the surface that it flew straight into the territory of science fiction… was really riding up on him in uncomfortable places.

Apparently he’d grown up a bit over the past year.

Puberty truly was a cruel and fickle mistress.

Pushing that thought to the far rear of his mind, the armour-clad teen allowed himself to relax and take an (admittedly, slightly awkward) crouch as the object of his pursuit parked itself at the foot of a towering, chrome-coloured skyscraper across the street. Taking advantage of his eyesight to stay out of theirs, camping out on the far side of the roof to observe them all directly through the building itself.

A finger rose to the side of his helmet, a quiet chirp echoed within as he did so.

”Alright, Karen. In position.”

The air behind Malcolm shimmered and warped as a figure phased into view. Malcolm, of course, would have most likely seen the figure coming, as invisibility and cloaking technology could only go so far when dealing with someone who could see into the fabric of the universe.

The man, clad in black-plated, form-fitting armor strode up beside the crouching teen and crossed his arms.

”So, doing some late-night hunting?” The distorted voice asked from behind the demonic octopus mask. He crouched down and activated the cloaking field again, his armor plates fading to the color of the rooftop and taking on a pockmarked coral appearance as he did so.

”It’s good to have the watch-shark back in the city, Mako.” Cuttlefish quipped, reaching over and clasping the younger man on the shoulder. ”But I am curious about the visit. I’d have thought you would be busy with your studies? What are we doing out here?”

”Ori?” Mal asked aloud through his voice-modulator as his head turned slightly to face the much taller man at his side… and the claws along his armoured fists quietly sheathed themselves before he raised a hand and gave his surrogate uncle’s a little pat and squeeze on his shoulder, posture relaxing slightly for the first time in hours. ”Yeah, sorry about that. Would’ve called, but it’s been a helluva day.”

Releasing the Ocean-King’s hand, Mal’s head slowly turned forward again as he kept talking. A slight note of humour making it’s way through the distortion of his voice-modulator.

”Long story short; Karen thinks she might’ve stumbled upon some kinda drug ring. Or her roommate did at a party last night, anyway.” ‘Mako’ stated plainly, shifting a little to at least find some comfort where he was sitting. ”So we’re giving it a look... and trying to be quiet about it.”

The teen’s head turned slightly again towards the Octo-Masked King, though his eyes stayed rooted forward.

”-Rather not spook them and drive them further underground thinking there’s a mob of capes and tights after them.”

The eyes of the disguised King of Atlantis narrowed behind his mask as he looked down at the moving hovercar that presumably contained Karen and her roommate.

”A drug ring… This would be Ophelia, not Hannah, I assume?” Orin asked, hazarding a guess. ”I made it my business to familiarize myself with the applications of our surface students, it seemed prudent. Just like your plan, a daring nighttime sting operation into the suspected heart of a drug-running ring. You do have a flair for the dramatic, Mako.” He said, a grin creeping into his voice.

”Fortunately, I am a sucker for a good cop show.” Orin admitted, standing up. The suit’s reflexive camo shifted to hide his silhouette against the domed sky, and Orin scanned his eyes along the street. ”Would you mind another partner to watch your back? I’ve been cooped up for awhile now and I’d like to stretch my legs a bit.”

Beneath his mask, Malcolm couldn’t help but grin a little himself.

”Hey it’s your city, Uncle Ori.”

”Hey now, I’m undercover. Call me Cuttlefish.”

”...Wait, what?”

---

With their eyes fixed to the ground below, it would almost be hard to see the small purple blur that made its war across the night sky. Static Shock was making his own rounds around the city, doing things like he used to do before even Gear was apart of the team.

The shock box had been put away for now. He’d come back to Richie is he came across anything, but right now he was just looking for some trouble. Cars, people, everything blurred around him, but was made easier with the new glasses he wore. Easier on his eyes and better for when he was casting lightning out of his fingertips.

“Come on, come on. I know you’re out there somewhere…” Static muttered to himself, his eyes keen on finding danger. A hand dug into his pocket to fish out his shock box once more. Opening it up, he flipped through a few settings and pulled out a long antenna.

His hope was to find any possible roaming signals and catch them. Maybe it would be the criminals he was having a feeling for, maybe it would be something else. Whatever it was Mal was being so tight lipped about had to be happening somewhere in the streets, and Virgil was going to be damned if he didn’t have a piece of it.

But then it happened.

On one of the rooftops was an armored figure. Virgil slowed to a halt hockey-style and put the Shock Box away once more. In its place was a set of binoculars. They weren’t glamorous, but they got the job done.

Virgil slowly backed away. Not only did they look like serious business, but they were simply watching the city. They were looking for something too. This was the trail that Virgil was looking for.

He mulled the possibility of swooping in now and taking them on, but if he followed them to wherever they were going, he’d progress a lot easier than if he fought them. He’d simply have to follow them and see where they were going.

Heroes Reborn: Year Six (OPEN)

February 7th; 1:33 PM
Lycus Dorm, University of Poseidonis, Atlantis

Mal's eyes remained locked forward, still seemingly boring a hole straight through the wall where she'd been standing with the express intent of burning them and everything behind them for another three miles straight to the fucking ground. Even if the rest of his face remained entirely neutral the whole while.

After a long, dragging few seconds of silence the teen finally spoke, addressing his roommate still standing in the doorway without even looking up at him. His tone, though still outwardly calm, rapidly beginning to warp and twist into something far more malevolent.

It was sometimes easy to forget that, through all the jokes, laughter and banter, Malcolm was still a very angry young man, deep down inside. He just made a point of keeping it in check.

...Until someone pushed the right buttons, that is.

"Get in here. Close the door. Now."

Heroes Reborn: Year Six (OPEN)

February 7th; 1:32 PM
Lycus Dorm, University of Poseidonis, Atlantis

Whatever master plan Mal had been about to impart upon the blonde's pretty little noggin came to an abrupt halt as he registered the rattle of his bedroom door out of the corner of his eye, made silent by the device still mounted on the wall. The Kasimir ward instantly fell silent, leaning back onto his desk and hands folding neatly in front of him as his face took on a blank expression.

Idly, his eyes traveled down to his watch, where they lingered for a solid half-minute of increasingly tense silence before slowly knitting shut as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Five minutes..."

That low, growling whisper was barely audible over the sound of the biometric lock on his desk drawer disengaging and rolling out before the battle-scarred teen wordlessly stuck his free hand inside and fished out one of his old earpieces.

"We'll talk later." Malcolm stated flatly, reaching out and deftly dropping the thing into one of Karen's jacket pockets before she could get a word of protest in, though the glare he locked onto her right then and there probably would've done the job anyhow "But for now, you have some shopping to do, don't you?"

Though still as outwardly cold and collected as he'd been this entire time, the vast reserves of Mal's patience that had kept him (relatively) civil through this whole ordeal had very clearly just about run dry. The fact that the constant orange glow hidden away by his contact lenses had slowly begun to creep out back into plain sight, slowly snaking it's way up the blood-vessels in his eyes was only the most obvious clue.

Slowly folding his arms with a sense of calm and control that was beginning to look more and more forced as the seconds ticked by, the boy then casually gestured toward the door with his thumb.

"Go."

Heroes Reborn: Year Six (OPEN)

February 7th; 1:31 PM
Lycus Dorm, University of Poseidonis, Atlantis

"You do not get to extol me about your own common sense right now." Mal replied curtly. "You lost that luxury about ten minutes ago."

Lowering his hands to the desk he was leaning on, where they almost immediately began tapping against it's steel frame to the habitual tune of some beat he'd long forgotten the origin of, Mal cast another glance to the side, eyeballing Virgil through the wall again and weighing his options.

Part of him wanted to go out there, grab the guy by the collar and drag him in here for this kind of talk.

Another, more rational part of his psyche reminded him that a walking, talking tesla coil was not exactly the most subtle thing to bring to the table in a situation like this, where they didn't necessarily want to advertise with big neon signs 'HEY, EVERYBODY! THE BIG DAMNED HEROES ARE HERE!' if they wanted to find a lead they could pursue later.

...And another, quieter part of him was still just a little pissed that one of his closest friends hadn't spared a single thought of caution before wantonly foraging through his belongings with someone he barely knew.

What if they had actually found something? Sure, Virgil didn't care much about who knew about his gifts, but someone like Mal didn't exactly have that luxury, dammit.

Knitting his eyes shut and taking a long, controlled breath, the Watchdog of Bludhaven finally spoke.

"Okay. This is how we're gonna do this..."

Heroes Reborn: Year Six (OPEN)

February 7th; 1:31 PM
Lycus Dorm, University of Poseidonis, Atlantis

For his part, Mal just stared Karen down in silence as she explained herself, arms crossed head tilted slightly to the side and a look in his eyes advertising very clearly that the young Latina was going to have to try just a little harder to regain his trust after a stunt like that.

But had he any intention of arguing any further with her, he didn't show it, as his brows furrowed at what exactly the blonde was telling him led her down this course of action. An only semi-voluntary hum rattling in his throat as his eyes momentarily shifted toward the sound-proofing device he'd fished out of his toolkit and slapped on the wall as his roommates were shown out, before his vision shifted to give both men a once-over through the wall, to see if they were trying to listen in or not, still more than a little annoyed for their part in this whole invasion of his privacy.

"Where?" Mal asked in that familiar tone that only really made itself known when he was 'working'. "And when?"

Heroes Reborn: Year Six (OPEN)

February 7th; 1:27 PM
Lycus Dorm, University of Poseidonis, Atlantis

Mal's brow twitched again as Karen not only heaved the heavy duffel-bag, lined with armoured plate, stitched with prometheum-based fibres and kept shut by a padlock with a built-in biometric scanner with the express intention of keeping people out of it onto his bed... but then went ahead and opened it.

The boy took a long breath to calm himself. He could already feel a storm of a headache coming on.

'Clearly going to have to reset who has access to my shit after this...'

Stepping forward and setting his bag down on the counter of the communal kitchen, Mal's eyes shifted slowly, deliberately between the Dakotan and the Norwegian before resting on Karen again. Head tilting to the side slightly as he spoke again with that same razor sharp tone.

"Could you two give us a minute? I think I need to have a word or two with our Kare-Bear here..."

Heroes Reborn: Year Six (OPEN)

February 7th; 1:26 PM
Lycus Dorm, University of Poseidonis, Atlantis

It had been a good day.

Mal had been out for a little venture about the town; doing some work at the gym to pay Persephone back for breaking so much of her equipment, catching up with old friends he'd made- both former Vanguard employees who'd stuck around below the waves after their official duties had ended and a few of the locals he'd met and worked with in those days. Wandered the bazaar for a bit. Picked up some groceries on the way home...

All in all, it had been a good day.

Which is quite perplexing how we now find Mal, standing in the now open doorway of his dorm. Grocery bag gripped in one hand while the other still remained wrapped around the coral door-handle, seemingly gripping it so tightly that it'd make one wonder why it hadn't snapped under the force and watching the trio sorting through his personal affects with all the grace and tact of a bull in a china shop.

His brow twitched.

It had been a good day.

"Oh, hey." The boy finally spoke after a moment of silence, loud enough to get the attention of the assembled interlopers. Calm, but with a peculiar edge to it. "So..."

His tone was a recognizable sign to those who knew him that he was more than a little angry about what was going on here.

As was the uncharacteristic unfriendly smile that accompanied it.

"Mind telling me what the honest-to-god fuck you're all doing?"

Heroes Reborn: Year Six (OPEN)

January 27th, 12:41 AM
Outside Asterion Dormitory

The boy cocked a brow at Karen's words, but didn't let his trademarked smirk falter as he responded.

"Well, can't fault you on that. You know more than anyone I'm not exactly the world's greatest authority on having a decent sleep schedule." Mal replied as the blonde lamented her hard time getting some shut eye, though his head tilted to the side slightly at her apparent surprise that he hadn't let up at all in his exercise routine, fixing her with an expression ‘Really?’ ”...And this is the only body I have. So whether I’m working or not, I might as well keep it in working order.”

And to be fair, it wasn’t like he was really following his usual routine.

...He didn’t have a sparring partner, or a building to jump off of, after all.

”Yeah,” she said, folding her arms.

Moving to the short flight of stairs at the entrance of her dormitory, she cautiously sat down on them as if she might accidentally fall back into a deep pit if she wasn’t careful. Staring up at Malcolm, she gestured for him to sit.

”Human bodies really do require a lot of maintenance, don’t they?” she muttered, shaking her head. ”Constant cleaning, constant eating, constant sleeping, among other annoying things, just to keep something so fragile running.”

A slight snort escaped the lad at that.

”You make it sound like a chore.” Malcolm noted, taking the offered seat beside her and allowing his gym bag to flop to the ground in front of him with a definite thud. ”...But I don’t particularly recall you ever complaining when I was grilling lobster tails for ya... and I certainly don’t recall you having any gripes about passing out on my couch, snuggled up with the dogs.”

The boy shot her another quirked brow as he reached into his bag and pulled out two cans of somesort of Atlantean post-workout drink, dropping one in her lap in a show of ‘Just drink it, damn you.’

”You could forego hygiene though, if ya really wanted… but I’d be the first to tell you that ‘Dreadlocks and no Teeth’ would be a pretty bad look for you.”

Karen twisted the cap, listening to the hiss of the air escaping with a slight frown. ”You act like I can’t eat good food when I want to as Lady Arcana,” she noted.

”Do you?” Mal interjected

She glanced over to him. ”Well...no, I don’t suppose I have. Not since I haven’t had to pretend I was an adult, at least.”

Mal just kinda stared at her at that, Kasimir brow raised in full force but saying nothing.

Until finally-

”Karen- When was the last time you actually ate something?” It was worded as a question, but for all intents and purposes may as well have been an accusation.

Karen blinked at his question, briefly glancing up at the artificial twilight above. Of course, the answer was the same as just about everything to do with her having a normal, human life. ”...About eight months ago.”

She hadn’t eaten all day, now that she thought about it. She had been ignoring the slowly building ache in her gut this entire time.

”I was… too focused on settling in.”

That put a frown on Mal’s face, as he twisted the cap to his drink back on and set it down by his side. Resting his forehead in his hand for a second before settling on just pinching the bridge of his nose in lieu of an outright facepalm.

”...And am I going out on a limb here and assuming that you haven’t slept, moved or otherwise done anything that doesn’t immediately involve being the Wizard in eight months either?”

Karen shook her head. ”No. I’ve been staying in the Rock of Eternity, so I had no real need to do anything of the sort.”

After all, she had retreated there to get away from her life. Granted, she hadn’t intended to do so for eight months. Two or three weeks had been what was in her head at the time, she recalled. She had never been Lady Arcana for more than a day or two before that, and after the first month had passed she felt...different.

She felt numb.

”And in those eight months, you decided that sleeping, eating and being around other people was somehow below you?” The younger teen asked, brows raised.

Karen glanced down at her drink. ”...Yes. In a sense. I felt like such things were insignificant next to my duties.”

A low, eerily Zoey-like hum rattled in the boy’s throat at that as he stared his sister in all but name down. Karen might not recall it right now, but Mal’s memory was just as sharp Arcana’s, perhaps even moreso in some ways.

...And boy, did he remember that instant hostility he was met with when calling her over the scrying stone, though it would do no good to bring that up now.

”So, what made you decide it was time to pump the brakes, then?” He finally asked with a frown as he leaned back on the steps and his eyes turned upwards towards the artificial sky. ”...I know it couldn’t have been something like that insignificant talk you had with an insignificant guy like me.”

Karen returned his frown, looking away from him and the dormitory. She still hadn’t taken a sip from her drink yet. ”You said ‘what we become when we forget who we are is not worth the sacrifice’.”

”You saying that...it made me think,” she admitted, ”think about all the things that once mattered to me, but no longer did. I still refused to kill, but it was more about adhering to my personal doctrine rather than actually…caring.”

Karen then finally raised her drink and took a long gulp from the can. Swallowing the sugary drink with a heavy sigh, she continued. “After close to two weeks of dwelling on it, I realized that something had dramatically changed inside of me. By no longer caring about my own happiness, I ceased to care about the happiness of others. As long as I didn’t break my code, that was all that mattered.”

The boy’s eyes slowly found their way over to Karen, an unreadable expression coming across his features as she all but emptied out her heart right there in front of him. To his credit, it wasn’t the typical Kasimir brow or Zoey-ish, throaty hum that made up his reply, but rather the chorus of joints and the remnants of old bone-breaks crackling and popping as he calmly sat back up, wrapped a tired arm around the girl’s shoulder and gently pulled her close, resting his head against her own as he did so.

It really was impossible to stay mad at her.

”...Goddammit, Karen.” Malcolm finally stated, his voice somewhere between a laugh and an exhausted sigh. ”You are just the biggest pile of complications that ever was, ain’t’cha?”

For a brief moment, he simply stayed like that, before he finally released her with a gentle messing of her hair as he got to his feet with a slight grunt.

”Ya might wanna save that drink for later- on an empty stomach, you’ll be out cold in half an hour.” The Kasimir ward explained simply, rolling his shoulder in a familiar motion to relieve the pressure from an old injury from years back. ”And we’ve clearly got some things to do.”

Karen felt a distinct, fuzzy warmth in her chest when Malcolm laid his head against hers. It brought back memories of when they were kids; happy memories. She hadn’t felt a sensation like that since she withdrew to the Rock.

”Tonight?” she asked, glancing over to him. ”Aren’t most places closed by this hour?”

Granted, who knew if Atlantean society had the same rules or regulations that the surface did? ”And where exactly do you want to go?”

”When I was down here with Vanguard after the civil war, we had more than a few late nights. So we’d always wind up crawling back to the same restaurant after work to stuff our gullets so we could skip breakfast the next day.” Mal explained with a little shrug as he picked up his bag. ”One of our paramedics had the misfortune of falling head over heels in love with the owner, and, after jumping through a truly insane amount of legal hoops and laws that actually had to be written for the occasion, became Atlantis’ very first double-citizen when he married her.”

Mal shot Karen a wry grin at that, almost daring her to turn him down.

”So, incidentally, I have a lot of coupons that need redeeming. And a friend who just told me she hasn’t eaten in eight friggin’ months.”

Karen remained silent for a long moment, made all the more striking by the eerie stillness that permeated Atlantis at night. She would probably never get used to that--it just didn’t feel natural to her, the absence of weather despite technically being “outside”.

Shaking her head slowly, Karen stood. ”Alright. I can’t claim that I’m not hungry. Lead the way.”

In all honesty, her stomach ache was starting to get a little unbearable at this point. It would become a distraction if she didn’t do something about it.

A snort followed Karen’s acceptance of her culinary fate.

”Trust me, you’ll sound a lot less resigned about it once you taste Atlantean cuisine.” Mal explained offering out his hand to help Karen up ”I’m particularly fond of the strawberry shakes.”

Heroes Reborn: Year Six (OPEN)

January 27th, 12:39 AM
Outside Asterion Dormitory

What little hair he allowed to grow on his head still just slightly damp from hitting the showers after his workout, Mal silently trudged his way down the ethereally lit streets of Poseidonis towards the campus. Dressed far more casually than the norm- the jacket of his grey tracksuit open, gymbag slung over his shoulder and the lip of his Vanguard ballcap hiding a furrowed brow as he marched forward with trepidation concealed under years of practice towards the inevitable confrontation of his own making.

His powerful peepers quickly picked up on Karen's familiar figure, leaning up against the wall of her dormitory around his next turn.

'...Crap.'

This had been a lot easier over the scrying stone.

Just what the hell was he supposed to say?

Still, despite his doubts, the boy carried on without even a change in his gait. This conversation needed to happen- there was no way of getting around that. If not for Karen's sake, then his own.

"I choose to believe in Karen Hernandez."

The boy's own words from a few weeks back rattled around in his head. He had meant every word of it and still did. It was just a matter of getting her to believe that, too, a Herculean task in it's own right.

His feet moved on autopilot.

Goddamn, life was a lot easier back when his day to day routine was just defusing bombs and punching people in the face.

His feet came to a stop. It took the boy a half-second to realize that that was because he'd arrived at his destination, on the sidewalk and to his oldest friend's left, hand rising out of his pocket on habit to give her a little wave.

'Well, Mal. Time to nut up.'

"Mornin', Sunshine." The boy greeted with his usual little smirk, but much less volume, both due to the lingering fatigue of his workout and out of consideration for the girl's neighbours "Didn't wake ya, did I?"