He nodded.

“But you’d better go after that girl and apologize.  Because the way I heard it from Kid Win, you were the one who told everyone else to be extra nice to her, because she was taking it hard.  You convinced Shadow Stalker to play nice, and from what Kid Win said before class started, that was a pretty big deal.

Hoo boy, hypocrisy on top of everything else wrong with what Clocky just said and did.

Maybe I’m wrong, I don’t know your team like you do, but I’d guess that if you don’t fix this, your team won’t forgive you for a long time.”

His team, maybe. He himself? I’m not sure about that.

“Yeah,” he swallowed.  Was she using her power?  He was getting a bad vibe from her.  Like he was locked in a cage at the zoo with a murderous jungle cat.

She might be, but she’s kind of intimidating to begin with.

She poked him in the chest with a finger.  “A real apology.  You own up to what you said and did, acknowledge that it wasn’t fair of you to say, and you promise to do better in the future.  That probably means you should cut Weld some slack, because Vista wants you to.”

Okay, so when I first met Victoria and Amy, I liked them a lot. Over time, some of my hype for Victoria faded, though.

But this? She just stuck a jetpack on her back and rocketed back up even higher than before.

…

Wait, she doesn’t need a jetpack, she can fly.

He moved to chase her, stop her, but the hallway folded together, letting her reach the end in two strides, snapping back to its full length as she passed along it.  She rounded a corner in the distance.

It’s not easy to win a race against someone who can make the goal come to them and move away from you.

He looked at Glory Girl, his voice small, “I’m sorry.”

She answered him with only a glare.  He wondered if she would hit him.

Oh cod I forgot she was still there when he made that comment about Gallant

You fucked up, Clocky. You really fucked up.

Is Glory Girl angry enough to let it out on Clocky’s dad by not doing Clocky that favor she just said she’d do?

She relented, looking in the direction Vista had run off.  “It’s okay.  We’re all worn down, at the end of our ropes, and you’re worrying about your dad on top of that.  You get one pass from me.  One.”

Phew.

Vista shook her head.  “That robot, and he’s not really a robot, by the way, is doing as much paperwork as the rest of us put together.  He only makes us do the paperwork he can’t do himself.  Even if he doesn’t have to.  That gets brownie points from me.”

Rumor has it he eats it sometimes too.

His temper flared.  “What, are you channeling Gallant, here?  Standing up for…” he trailed off before he could finish.  Realized who he was talking to.  “Shit, no, I…”

Aw. Yeah, try not to get too harsh.

Vista just stared at him.  After a second, her eyes got shiny, and she looked down at the ground, an angry expression on her face.   She wheeled around and ran down the hallway.

To quote a certain pre-teen from two chapters ago: “Yeah, you fucked up.”

“I’ll trust you have reason for this,” Weld smiled slightly, showing a row of white metal teeth, “But don’t take too long.  You’re on patrol at two this afternoon, and that doesn’t allow us much leeway for delays if we want to finish watching.”

I kind of figured they were on a time limit given that they didn’t flagrantly abuse the pause function to discuss, like with the comments about Flechette’s trigger event, without missing stuff.

“Alright,” Clockblocker repeated, his tone growing impatient.  He watched as Weld returned to the classroom, shutting the door behind him.  To the closed door, he muttered, “Tool.”

Yeeah, probably gonna take a lot to get Clocky to like Weld at this point.

“He’s trying,” Vista piped up.  “It’s hard to be leader, but he’s working hard.”

Between 9.1 and now, Vista seems like a rather perceptive girl, emotionally and socially speaking. A counter to Weld, in that sense.

“That’s my whole problem with him,” Clockblocker answered, annoyed, “He gets on our case about patrols and training and paperwork, then turns around and says he’s not asking us to do anything he isn’t doing himself.  Except he only sleeps one or two hours a night, he barely eats, doesn’t need to use the washroom or shower.  He’s got no friends or family here to look after.  He can afford to work hard.  He’s a f…rigging robot.”

…that’s a good point. In some ways, Weld is quite privileged.

He censored himself for his junior teammate.

I like that, even though we already know Vista has no apparent qualms with using the other F word herself. :p

The censoring says more about Clocky than about Vista.

“Thank you,” he said, “Really.”

“And if you want to pay me back, maybe tell me about Gallant sometime.  Share some stories I wouldn’t get to hear otherwise.”

Heh, nice. Sounds like a good time.

“For sure.”

The door opened, and Weld stepped out into the hall, followed closely by Vista.  Clockblocker felt a pang of annoyance, bit his tongue before he could say anything.

“Kind of having a moment here, guys!”

“Everything okay?” Weld asked.

I could tell them, Clockblocker glanced at Vista, but the rest of the team would find out.  They don’t need another thing to worry about.

Fair enough. The one who really doesn’t need another thing to worry about right now is you, but it does apply a lot to the others too.

“Things are okay,” Clockblocker spoke, carefully.

Some things are okay.

Not all of them, but some things.

“We paused the video, waiting until you guys are ready.”

“Alright,” Clockblocker replied.  He added, “Thank you.”

Nice.

Glory Girl had lost three people she was close to on that day.  Gallant – Dean when out of costume – was a loss she shared with Clockblocker.  Her boyfriend, his friend.

RIP.

“I know it’s crass, I know you guys have rules,” he spoke, “I’ll understand if you get angry.  But… my dad has leukemia.  He was a few days into some pretty rigorous treatments when Leviathan came.

Ohhhh, now I get it. I’m a dumb. Of course he wanted to hear if Glory Girl could get Panacea to help out.

He got hurt when one of the waves hit, and some infection got at him through the wounds.

He has pretty much no immune system, doesn’t have the strength to fight it off.”

Nasty stuff.

“You want me to ask my sister to use her power on him.”

“Please.”

Knowing Panacea, she’ll be willing to, but not necessarily to prioritize him over all the other people suffering after Leviathan’s antics.

“Okay.”

The response startled him.  He looked up at her, caught off guard.

And yeah, I didn’t really see any real reason for Glory Girl to say no, other than maybe her emotional state – though she does seem to have recovered somewhat.

She explained, “I’m not promising anything.  Like you said, Amy has her rules about taking requests.  But I’ll see if I can convince her.  Again, no promises.”

Sounds good.

And yeah, like, Amy cares a lot about helping as many people as she can, but she’s also reluctant to value one life over another.

“Are you?  Joining?”

“Don’t know.  They’re willing, if I agree to some extra rules and stipulations.  They’d be putting me on probationary membership, like they did with Shadow Stalker.

Why? Because she’s been essentially a vigilante, due to the nature of New Wave?

I came by to get a sense of things, see if it’d be worth going through the hassle instead of going solo.  I thought maybe I was ok with doing it until I saw the portraits in the lobby.  Now I’m not so sure.”

…which portraits?

Clockblocker nodded.  She didn’t need to explain.  Where the Wards’ portraits hung in the lobby of the PRT offices, the portraits of Aegis and Gallant had been reprinted in black and white, surrounded with thick black frames.

Ahhh. Memorials for some, painful reminders for others.

They had been repositioned to be just above the front desk and below the PRT logo, with wreaths and flowers beneath, tokens from the PRT employees.  The building wasn’t open to the public, and was surrounded by PRT squads, but the public would get their chance to pay respects.

They sort of already do, what with the memorial on Captain’s Hill, though that’s more for everyone than for specifically the two Wards.

He hung up, paused to compose himself.

Not fair.

Not at all.

Stepping back inside the classroom, he returned to his seat, but didn’t sit down.  Instead, he stepped up a little further to where Glory Girl sat and touched her shoulder.  When she raised her head, he pointed to the door.  She nodded, stood.

Hm? What does he want to talk to Glory Girl about?

Loss of family members?

When they were both in the hallway, he spoke, “Sorry to pull you away from that.”

She shook her head, golden curls swinging, “Not missing anything.  I’ve already taken this class.”

Sooo, why are you here exactly? Just wanting to get away from some things, but still be around people?

“Oh.  Then why are you here?”

“New Wave may be disbanding.  My mom suggested that if I wanted to keep being a hero, I should consider joining the Wards.  So I’m here, checking things out.  Your leader and director okayed it.”

I see. They did lose a lot of manpower. Neither pun on that word intended, but both appreciated and endorsed.

I can’t blame them if some of the remaining members have decided to retire after the events of Extermination.

“So he’s going to die.”

“I’m sorry.”

This is probably really hard to face for everyone involved.

“A few hours?  Days?  A week?”

“The doctor says it’ll be the next few days.”

He clenched his fist, relaxed it.  Not fair.

As if Clockblocker didn’t have enough to worry about with the state of the city, it’s all on top of this? No wonder he’s not in the greatest of moods these days.

“Hey, mom?  Listen, I’ve got to run.”

“Come by, Dennis.  Before it’s too late.”

“I’ll try.”

“I love you.”

“Love you too.”

*sigh*

I’m sorry, Clocky.