He didn’t look like he had much muscle, but I wasn’t about to comment on that.  If nothing else, I was a little too stunned at what he was offering to say anything witty.  “Pretty much.”

It makes a load of sense. Skitter’s a villain who lacks muscle willing to work for a supervillain. They’re muscle who lack a villain to work for. The pieces fit together beautifully.

I wonder what Lung would think if he learned that parts of his gang had gone to the annoying bug kid for work.

“We heard you took on Mannequin,” the girl said.  “That’s ballsy.”

It really was.

“Thanks,” I said, in my driest tone.  Stupid as it was, that statement meant something to me.  Nobody had really congratulated me since my fight with Mannequin.  I hadn’t congratulated myself.

Yeah, see? It was a victory.

It was hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that they respected me for what had happened with Mannequin.  A victory was a victory, but people had gotten hurt, I’d gotten hurt.

Yes, and thanks to you, way fewer people got hurt than if you hadn’t stepped in.

It was torture to actually get my limbs into the legs and sleeves and zip up, and to contort myself to attach my armor.  Especially doing it quickly.  I ended up enlisting Brian’s help with the armor at my shoulders and back.

This is more relatable than it has any right to be.

I could feel Sierra’s steady but insistent tapping on the cube all the while.

“Come on, come on, come on…”

Seems like whatever the people around her want, they’re pressuring her.

They were a short distance down the beach, but they started walking towards us a little bit after we entered the storm drain, and met us halfway.

How did they know to start walking?

Sierra was in the company of a pair of Japanese boys and a petite Chinese girl with a pierced nose and a thousand-yard stare.  There was a degree of attitude coming from them that was all too familiar.  Gang members.  Of course.

I should’ve known the ABB wouldn’t stay entirely irrelevant.

Just because Lung and Bakuda were no longer around didn’t mean there wouldn’t be scraps of the ABB in the area.  They wouldn’t be liked, but they were there, they were equipped for trouble and criminal activity was all they knew.

Yeeah. And if they find another leader, they might come back in force.

“No, I don’t think he would.  Her talents are too valuable for him.  But that doesn’t explain your attitude lately.”

I shook my head.  “I-”

I stopped and raised one hand.  Sierra was outside, not too far away, and there was a small group of people around her.  What had gotten my attention was the fact that she was tapping her finger against the origami cube.  She’d wanted to signal me without doing anything overt, maybe.

…um. Citizens, perhaps, wanting Skitter’s attention and going to the redhead they’d seen going around gathering information for her?

The tapping would then be because she didn’t want Skitter to attack the people.

Or without my calling a swarm down to her location.

“-Something’s going on outside.  Come with?”

Sounds good.

Brian nodded.

I headed upstairs and got my costume on in record time.  I couldn’t help but note how dusty it was from last night’s encounter, and how the one arm was still crusty with old containment foam.

Alright, that confirms it – it wasn’t called attention to (maybe meaning it’s happened before, offscreen), but Sierra has now seen Skitter out of costume.

Brian shook his head.  “No.  There’s got to be more to it.  You’ve been distant, driven, and you’ve done some very un-Taylor-like things in the past few weeks.”

She does focus ridiculously hard on Dinah. It’s not far-fetched that it’s partially a form of denial about the other things driving her.

I ate some of the plain brown rice.  Could I tell him?

“There is more to it.  Lisa and I talked it over after the Endbringer thing.  She doesn’t like the Dinah situation either, even if she’s more willing to roll with it.”

Where is this going?

“Right.  Just for the record, I’m not in love with the kidnapping and confinement of some kid, either.”

And yeah, it’s much the same case with Grue, though he’s even less willing to do something about it.

I nodded.  “So Lisa suggested the deal.  But knowing Coil, and from what Lisa says, and from the way Coil framed it when I posed the deal to him and just my gut, I- we don’t think he’s going to let her go.”

Oh right, I forgot she was the one behind that idea.

But yeah, good to hear she’s not completely fooled.

I shook my head, “I can’t.”

“Right.  Just like you rejected Hookwolf’s suggestion that our groups take a break.  I won’t say that hearing you muttering to yourself was the entire reason I refused his offer, or even half the reason, but it was a factor, and I think I deserve answers for going up to bat for you.

Coming clean about how much she wants to help Dinah might be healthy for Taylor, though I doubt Brian will approve.

What’s going on?”

“I made a deal with Coil.”

Brian folded his arms, much as I was doing.  “What deal?”

“I made a deal with the devil.”

Although judging by my ToC “titles”, the devil was Kaiser.

“He said that if I can prove my services are worth it, he’ll release Dinah.”

Which he’s not going to do. Coil can set the bar however high he wants, and unless she changes her mind significantly, Skitter probably isn’t going to go through with leaving Coil’s employ if he doesn’t release Dinah – especially since neither party set a timeframe for it – because it feels too much like giving up and failing Dinah, and I think Coil has that figured out.

It’s a sucker’s deal that allows Coil to put lots of pressure on Skitter with no real risk of her going “fuck this shit I’m out”.

Noting my pain, Brian commented, “I can’t help but worry you’re self destructing, Taylor.  You can’t go up against the Nine to protect people you don’t even know.”

That’s what the heroes do. And even then, two out of the five heroes we’ve seen actually encounter a Slaughterhouse member without that Slaughterhouse member coming specifically to nominate them ran away without a fight, and at least two of the others didn’t have that option.

“I can.  I’ll manage.”

“How much sleep did you get last night?”

He’s onto her.

“Dunno.  Two or three hours, but I slept in.  What time is it?”

“Nine.”

“Maybe four hours?”

Better than nothing, but not enough.

“You’re going to run yourself into the ground at this rate.  Or get yourself killed.  Take your time.  Go on the defensive, tell your people to stay out of trouble and avoid drawing the Nine’s attention, rest.  You can work on this territory thing over the next few weeks, instead of days.” 

Grue is right. Taylor has been working herself way too hard, and still feels guilty about not working harder.

Taylor is decent at understanding people, but she tends to ignore the potential for there to be sides to them that she doesn’t see, and she’s had a history of a very black and white view of people that still hasn’t quite left her. She’s just stopped equating that divide with the hero/villain divide.

“I think reckless may be a very good word to choose,” Brian replied.

Her impudence can result in recklessness, yes. That’s gotten her in trouble more than once.

“No.  It’s…” I reached for the word and couldn’t find it.  I was too tired, and my brain wasn’t really in that gear.

“I’m surprised, sometimes, at how much attention you pay to us.  You seemed to have Rachel down cold, and your description of Lisa seems pretty apt.  Makes me wonder how you’ve analyzed me.”

To be fair, she got a little help when it came to Rachel, and Lisa is her best friend.

But yeah, Taylor is a fairly good judge of character. We’ve seen that plenty of times.

“I’m not all that.  Really.  There are exceptions, but dealing with people isn’t my thing,” I said.  Feeling awkward, I distracted myself with the rice, taking it off the propane stove and scooping some out into a bowl.

She’s better at understanding people than at dealing with them.

Holding the pot, I pulled at the wrong muscle and felt my rib protest.  I winced, and I wasn’t able to hide it. 

Ow.

Grue pulled off his helmet and the darkness dissipated around his head.  It was Brian’s frowning face I saw, now.  “Your dad is fine.  He was already fully checked out and sent home.  Lisa is… less fine.”

Uh oh.

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s not life threatening.  I just don’t know if it’s hit her yet.

Good, so she’s alive at least. That was not a death euphemism.

But… if what’s hit her yet? Did something about the injury mess with her ability to continue working on the team or something? Or… make her mute? No, she’d notice that pretty quickly…

Coil’s doctor stitched her up, but he told her to expect a scar.  I don’t know if it’s shock, the blood loss, or if it’s that she hasn’t seen herself in a mirror, but she doesn’t seem to care.  Cracking jokes, even.  Isn’t- is it sexist of me to wonder why a girl doesn’t care more about her looks being spoiled?”

Ahh.

Hey, we’re back to Brian’s lowkey sexism – and this is also a great example of why it’s not as bad as it could be: he’s self-aware about it. He knows some of the view of women his dad beat into him isn’t right, he’s just not entirely sure which parts, and he’s trying to correct himself.

“It’s easily possible she does care,” I said.  I was thinking back to her interactions with our enemies in fights.  In particular, our run-ins with Glory Girl and Panacea during the bank robbery and Jack Slash last night seemed to stand out.  “I think maybe she handles stress and problems by throwing herself headlong against them.  It’s how she operates in costume, against serious threats and unexpected situations.

That sounds about right. It’s what she does – she catches enemies off-guard by acting completely unfazed and uses that along with her knowledge to manipulate them.

It makes a lot of sense that she’d extend that M.O. to other problems.

There’s a word I’m trying to pin down, it’s not reckless, but-”

Brash? Spiteful? No, spiteful sounds more like Amy when she’s dealing with Taylor. I think I’ll go with brash.

Actually, looks like brash has a lot of meanings that don’t all fit what I’m going for. Impudent is probably better.