Chapter Text
Chapter 8
"Would it be alright to discuss your Power now?"
Wednesday's voice was more subdued than Enid had ever heard it, and she kind of hated it. She was still mad that the Vigilante had pushed herself so hard, especially with the bowl of pink-tinged water and the blood-stained cloth so close at hand, but she had seen the regret in those dark eyes, the realization of pain given, and Enid knew it hadn't been intentional.
She wasn't sure she was quite ready to fully forgive Wednesday, not yet, at least, but she could move forward.
"Sure, we can talk about it," Enid said softly, wiping the tears she had been trying her hardest not to shed onto her sleeve. Even she could hear the bitterness in her voice when she continued, "Might as well make all that blood worth something."
Wednesday flinched, and Enid immediately felt awful. She hadn't meant to say it, not really, but the memory of turning around to see the dark-haired girl covered in blood, the sudden twist in her chest when she realized that Wednesday had let it happen just to save Enid some discomfort, the knowledge that it was her fault that Wednesday had gotten hurt, it was all too much to keep in.
Enid wanted to apologize, to say something, anything, to fix the chasm she could feel growing between them, but the words turned to ash in her mouth every time she caught a glimpse of the stained rag, or remembered the way the technopath's skin was slippery with blood under her fingers.
"Yes, well, your Power," Wednesday mumbled, the slight pain and concern on her face vanishing as she rebuilt the mask of indifference that she always wore, "I can, at least, confirm that I was correct in the assumption that your power is more than you believe it to be. Much more, in fact."
"Okay, ominous," Enid muttered, fingers twisting into the blankets, "So what, I can do more? Become more like a wolf? Take on other animal forms?"
"Yes, I suspect that would be easy enough for you," Wednesday answered, brain ticking away behind that impassive mask in a way that, for some reason, was infuriating to Enid. "Obviously, you will have to test out the limits of your Power, but as far as I can tell, the actual shape-shifting element has next to no limitations."
Enid froze at that, cocking an eyebrow.
"Well, perhaps that is overstating," Wednesday said, almost as if talking to herself, and Enid felt herself relax. It made sense to her that her Power wouldn't be as powerful as Wednesday had suspected, after all, that kind of thing wasn't something she deserved. "I believe energy reserves would be your only real limitation. You should be able to manipulate your own shape, mass, density, and other properties with relative ease, and without anything approaching conventional limits, assuming your body has enough energy stored. I suggest consuming as many calories as possible at every available interval. I sincerely doubt your Power will allow your body to be in anything other than peak condition."
"What?" Enid asked when she finally managed to kickstart her brain into motion once more. "That doesn't make sense. If I could do that, surely I'd know about it, right? My shifts are the same every time. I'd get maybe there being a little more to it that I haven't worked out yet… but Wednesday, that's an entirely different Power."
"I believe your block is entirely psychological. I believe your Power is a mutation of the one you believed you had, though I suppose it is possible your entire family has this Power and is simply under the impression it is far less than it truly is. However, I think that is rather unlikely, as a Power of this magnitude would begin showing signs, even without conscious use." Wednesday's theories flew from her lips rapidly, and Enid struggled to keep up, eyes fixed on the raven-haired girl's face, "It makes sense why your body responded naturally, enhancing itself to whatever you subconsciously felt you needed. With practice, I would assume that you would gain complete conscious control over your body."
"Doesn't that break like, every law of physics?"
"And most Powers act within the strong confines of reality?" Wednesday snarked, a glimpse of her personality shining through that impassive mask again. Enid didn't know if she wanted to kill her or kiss her—
Nope. No. Absolutely not. That thought wasn't allowed.
"Um, okay, right," Enid tried to pull her brain back on task and ignore the cascading realization of exactly why Wednesday hurting herself had twisted the knife so much, "Well, how do I do it?"
"How do you do what?"
"You know, use the other bits of my Power."
"I would imagine the same way you use it now," Wednesday offered unhelpfully with a small shrug, "My own Powers were mostly instinctual at first. Only once, pushing them past their limits to grow them further, did it require conscious thought. You used an unusual shift when sparring, so perhaps we simply need to push you into using them so that your body learns how it feels?"
"How would I even use them, though?" Enid said quietly, half speaking to herself, "I barely learned how to fight in the wolf form."
"If you could imagine it, you could do it," Wednesday replied, despite Enid's words barely being a whisper, "You could become dense enough to throw off any blow, strong enough to lift any obstacle, malleable enough to move through any defense as if it wasn't even there. Truthfully, Enid, it may be the most absurd Power I have ever heard of, if you learn to master it."
Enid swallowed the protests that were building in her throat. Every word she had ever been fed about not being worth more tried to crawl into her mouth and leap into the air, but the look in Wednesday's eyes kept her lips still. Wednesday wouldn't lie to her; she was starting to understand that fact. Obfuscate, perhaps, but never directly tell a lie. If she said Enid had the potential to be that Powerful, then she needed to believe her.
"Okay, alright, fine," Enid mumbled. Part of her wanted to push it away, to tell Wednesday she was making a mistake. There was no way that Enid could ever be that strong. Yet, how could she? How could she turn around and tell the girl who had desperately wished for a Power strong enough to fight, and hadn't gotten it, that she didn't believe her. Enid couldn't even imagine how strong Wednesday would have been with her Power if it were truly as flexible as she made it sound. "I'm going to need your help with it."
"Are you sure?" Wednesday asked, and the tremor in her voice wouldn't have been detectable if Enid weren't always slightly more than human because of her Power, "I understand if you would rather it not be me."
"Why wouldn't I want it to be you?"
Wednesday simply gestured at the bowl, lips quirking downward into a brief frown. All of a sudden, Enid felt that chasm again, the one that had nearly vanished in the shock of Wednesday's revelation, the growing space between them that she didn't know how to bridge. She was sure she wanted to, at least, but she just didn't know how.
"Of course I want it to be you," Enid said, voice gruffer and angrier than she had hoped it would be, though she supposed it was better than the rest of the emotions that were boiling in her chest being obvious, "You know more about this than anyone else, and you're by far the best fighter I know. It can't be anyone but you, Wednesday."
Wednesday just stared at her for a few moments, and Enid started to worry that maybe her feelings were etched into her face. Wednesday had said she was a technopath, not a telepath, but—
"Very well," Wednesday nodded sharply, "I appreciate your trust in this matter, especially considering my mistake. I hope I can make it up to you, Enid."
"Right, yeah, I'm sure—"
"Shit," Wednesday hissed suddenly, eyes going wide, "You need to go."
"What?" Enid's eyes went wide as she started to run through the last few minutes of conversation and work out where she went wrong. She certainly hadn't mentioned anything about kissing out loud, right? "Why?"
"I spoofed your location to the UCH, but the Sensor that was tracking you is sending his drones back to the rooftop you were on. You need to be there, or they will start asking questions neither of us wants you to answer."
"Fuck," Enid spat, scrambling to her feet fast enough that she knocked the bowl of water all over the bed, "Shit, shit, sorry—"
"Enid, it doesn't matter, you need to move, now!" Wednesday gritted out, hand gripping a small device on her belt, "I can send you back."
Enid froze. Wednesday still wasn't okay, would it—
"Yes, it will hurt me," Wednesday admitted before Enid could even ask the question, "But it's worth it. You deserve to be a Hero, Enid, despite what I think of the UCH. I should have noticed the Sensor returning sooner, and you wouldn't have needed me to move you, but you do."
Enid clamped her mouth shut, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes as she remembered Wednesday's bloodstained face, the slight crackle of bloody lungs expanding in a chest that must have felt too tight.
"Please, let me do this for you," Wednesday pleaded. The mask had fallen away now, dark eyes wide with an emotion that Enid couldn't place but felt like she recognized all the same, "Enid, please."
Enid felt her teeth shred the flesh of her lip as she gave a short nod. She didn't trust her voice.
"See you soon, Sinclair," Wednesday said, and then Enid was sure the world was ending, because the smaller woman gave her a smile. Not a smirk, not a twitch of the lips, not even a half smile that disappeared into nothing. A true, wide smile that gave Enid information that felt almost sacrilegious to have possession of.
Wednesday had dimples.
Then darkness closed around her, and something tugged at her navel, and suddenly she was standing on a rooftop surrounded by cold night air, the sound of the city rushing in around her. She quickly pulled up her datapad and let out a huff of relief when she saw she hadn't missed any messages, pings, or calls to action.
A few minutes later, now that Wednesday had pointed it out to her, she noticed the slight whirring sound of something mechanical getting closer, just as a message popped up on her pad. It was her region's Sensor, apologizing for such a slow night and relieving her of duty, along with assurances that her next shift would be better.
It isn't this slow every night, trust me, the message read, you'll be in the thick of it before you know it, and remembering nights camped out on rooftops fondly.
Enid let out a small laugh, shook her head, and pinged the UCH to say she was off duty before pocketing her datapad and hopping onto the fire escape. She could probably survive the fall without an issue, especially if her Power was even more than she thought, but that didn't mean it was worth freaking out any civvies that happened to be strolling about in the early hours of the morning. She scaled down the structure quickly, domino mask still in place as she pulled her hood up to cover her face, and started the long walk home.
Most established Heroes that didn't have any sort of movement ability hired one of the Tech Heroes or Inventor types to make them a vehicle of some kind, but Enid wasn't even close to having that kind of cash yet, so the heel-toe express would have to do. She spent the walk thinking through everything she'd learned. Not just about her own abilities, but about Wednesday's. She analyzed everything, from the times they had fought to throwing down against thugs in the middle of the street to watching a knife slip into her abdomen because Enid had distracted her, and it only made her more impressed.
No enhanced strength. No enhanced reflexes. A technological power that she had managed to turn into a weapon, combat skills that had been honed from years of painful training, and weapons and gadgets that she had designed alongside her father. Wednesday could have subdued her without her Powers, if she had wanted to, Enid was sure. It reminded her of what Breaker had said, about people who wanted to be Heroes, but didn't have any Powers. Sure, Wednesday had a Power, but if Enid was sure of anything, it was that Wednesday would be doing almost the exact same thing even if she'd never developed one.
Her own Power was mostly just a source of internal confusion. She had been so sure she knew the limits of her abilities that she was pushing herself every single day, but if she didn't even know what she could do, was that true? She'd thought she knew her Power, because it was the same as the rest of her family, excepting the fact that they had all been able to trigger the change before they'd even hit puberty.
Enid stopped suddenly, just a few feet from her front door, a thought hitting her between the eyes with all the surprise of a bullet that had gone unseen until after it impacted.
Was that why it had taken her so long to shift? Because her Power was different from theirs, it didn't work on the same timeline?
She clamped down on the sound that tried to escape her, a strange mix of manic laughter and sobbing, and shouldered the door open, only to find the apartment in disarray. The entire place was in absolute chaos.
"Um, alright, I can explain," Yoko said guiltily, already holding her hands above her head, one clenching a large wrench while the other had wires wrapped around it from wrist to armpit, "I mean, it won't be a good explanation, but it will be an explanation."
The kitchen table was a mess of machinery parts, from what looked like armor plates to pistons and servos, stacked into haphazard piles. The sofa was covered in what looked like deconstructed weaponry, everything from pieces of old-world handguns to the spooled internals of magnetic coil guns, scattered across the plush pillows and blankets as if they belonged there. The bubbling pot on the stove and the pieced-together chemistry apparatus holding a flask beneath the simmering purple solution were another piece of insanity that Enid wasn't sure she wanted to question.
"Alright," Enid said with a nod, flicking her hood back and looking at Yoko, "Explain away."
"Wait, really?" Yoko balked, hands flopping to her sides, "You aren't just going to file this under 'don't want to know' and get on with your night?"
"Nope," Enid popped her lips over the 'p', grinning slightly at the panic on her best friend's face, "Go on, Yoks. Run me through it all."
"Oh, um, ah," Yoko stuttered a little before her shoulders fell into a slump, "Damn. I fucked up big, huh?"
"I mean, I don't know yet," Enid shrugged, casting her eyes around the apartment, "Cause this looks like someone with a mental Enhancement that doesn't have a license to invent things, creating a whole host of different gear, in an apartment they share with a licensed Hero that they know is duty-bound to report a breach of law of that level."
"Look, I get it, I'll turn myself in, I don't want it coming onto you—"
"On the other hand," Enid mused, reaching out to squeeze Yoko's shoulder, "Maybe my roommate just got really into LARPing or something, and got a little too into designing some props. What do you think?"
Yoko just stared, before looking around at the room, the obvious weaponry, the not-at-all-subtle beginnings of power armor on the kitchen table, and the alchemical concoction bubbling away.
"LARPing, huh?" she mumbled after a moment, eyes a little misty, "Yeah, that sounds plausible."
"Right?" Enid hummed, patting Yoko's shoulder again, "Now, I'm going to go change into something that doesn't try to climb into my ass every time I take a step, and maybe take a shower, and when I get back, I reckon your props will be a little less… well, everywhere, right?"
"Yeah, sure," Yoko nodded quickly, already gathering things into a crate that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, "And, um, well, thanks. I didn't mean for it to get out of hand, but ever since we talked about that vigilante woman's healing solution, my brain hasn't really been able to shut off."
Enid let out a soft groan, "Don't thank me, cause once I'm done, I need to talk your ear off about a whole bunch of shit."
"E, you know I'm always here to listen," Yoko laughed, "Don't need to do me favors for that."
"I mean, that depends on what I need to talk about."
"Shit, is it serious? You know if you need help—"
"Let me shower, Yoks," Enid chuckled quietly, rolling her shoulders to disperse some of the tension that had settled into them. Despite the only exertion that night being a short session of sparring with her favorite Vigilante, she could already feel a knot forming at the point where her neck met her shoulders, "I feel gross, and this is going to take a while."
Enid went through the motions without really thinking about them. Her hoodie and temporary supersuit, although it was feeling more and more permanent these days, considering she still hadn't been told to see the quartermaster about getting a true suit, made their way to the laundry bin easily enough. The shower water was hot enough that she could tell Yoko had worked more of her magic on their old water heater, and the shampoo pulled the sweat from her scalp, leaving her feeling fresh and comfortable, and like herself once again. It didn't take her long to towel off, throw on a pair of sweats, and another bright pink hoodie (it had a bright green dumpster filled with burning money on the front, the words "Trash or Treasure?" scrawled in pastel blue font underneath. It was offensively colorful, and she loved it) before slumping into one of the chairs at the kitchen table.
She ignored the small pile of cogs that Yoko had missed in her hurry to tidy up, but accepted the mug of warm tea that her roommate pushed into her hands.
"So, what do you need to talk about?" Yoko asked, cradling her own mug in both hands so that she could take small sips.
Enid thought about everything that had happened. The fact that she was meeting a Vigilante on the regular, that her Power was probably completely different from what she thought it was, that her family wasn't right about her (something Yoko had been yelling for years anyway), that the UCH had her on standby rather than actually helping people. She ran through every possible topic and settled on starting with the most important one.
"So, I think I have a crush on a Vigilante that I'm pretty sure the UCH is going to label a Villain sooner rather than later," Enid said quickly, the words spilling out of her in a rush, like she hadn't actually said them so much as them sprinting into the world without her permission, "And she's surprisngly kind, and a bad ass, and I'm kind of mad at her right now but I also really want to kiss her, but I think if I did that she might murder me because she seems entirely allergic to any sort of affection, and I don't even know if she likes girls, and even if she does there is absolutely no way she'd ever like me."
Yoko just stared at her, blinking slowly. "Enid?"
"Hm?"
"I think we are going to need another pot of tea."
"Yeah," Enid sighed, slumping slightly as thoughts of plush lips and dark eyes resurfaced in her mind, "Yeah, we probably are."