I turned and ran out of the hospital, out the door and into the street, kept running.

Except I had no place to run to.

Welp.

Bitch stared at me wide eyed, teeth bared, as if all basic human expression had left her as she regarded me.  Regent looked me up and down, turned away, as if in disgust, one fist clenched hard enough to make the area around the long stitched up cut on his arm stand out in white.

Yeeeah, they’re not taking it well.

But how about Grue? Grue, the one Taylor got the closest to besides Tattle. Grue, her romantic interest up until his rejection a week ago. Grue, the leader of the team.

I couldn’t see Grue’s face, could barely make out his body language, but I knew that it would have stung ten times worse than anything else if I could see his expression in that moment.

Sounds about right.

Tattletale was the only one who didn’t look surprised.

Hah! She knew, didn’t she! 😀

I backed away a step, and nobody moved to stop me.  The heroes were preoccupied with Armsmaster, the Undersiders couldn’t or wouldn’t go around the gathered heroes to follow me.

Fair enough, really.

Some of the capes that were in the vicinity were staring at me.  Murmuring.  Panacea was among them, looking at me as though I were from another planet.

Oh man, Panacea must be so confused by this new knowledge, what with how dead set she was about Taylor being a horrible person and all.

And the kicker, that Panacea doesn’t specifically know about? When Taylor did all those things that got Panacea thinking of her like that, she still thought of herself as a hero.

I tried to speak, to say something, even ‘I changed my mind’.  My throat was too dry to form the words.

Armsmaster turned, shouted at the capes who stood watching, “You want to look down on me!?  I tried to save this city, I got closer to killing the fucking Endbringer than Scion!

Yeah, right.

That girl is the person you should be mocking, spitting on!  A wannabe hero without the balls to do anything heroic!  Planning from the start to betray teammates for fame!”

Isn’t… isn’t that literally what you just did? Under the truce, Kaiser, Fenja, Menja… they were all your teammates.

I stepped back, swallowed hard.

“Is this true?”

I turned to look at Grue, but he wasn’t asking me.  The question was for Tattletale.

I mean… fair. Why trust the accused over the fountain of knowledge who is still unambiguously on your side.

“Yeah,” Tattletale confirmed, sighing.

Well. Cat’s out of the bag.

Bitch stared at me wide eyed, teeth bared,

And, uh, Bitch isn’t exactly a cat person.

(I didn’t even set that up on purpose…)