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Dhani Batra

I know, better than anyone else, that there are no heroes coming to save us.

0 · 1,942 views · located in Barden, VA

a character in “the wicked game”, as played by phosphene

Description

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divisionary (do the right thing) | bite hard | safe and sound
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"As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary."
As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary.-Ernest Hemingway

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i d e n t i t y
xxxxx|| Name || Dhani Batra
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xxxxx|| Nicknames || Don, Donny, Paladin
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xxxxx|| Gender || Cismale
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xxxxx|| Age || 27
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xxxxx|| Birthday || October 12
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xxxxx|| Sexuality || Homosexual
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xxxxx|| Hometown || Barden, VA
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xxxxx|| Ethnicity || Indian
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a p p e a r a n c e

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xxxxx|| Height || 6'3"
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xxxxx|| Weight || 190 lbs
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xxxxx|| Hair Color || Black
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xxxxx|| Eye Color || Brown
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xxxxx|| Identifying Features || n/a
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xxxxx|| Description || As a child, Dhani was a mess of gangly limbs, and while he’s certainly grown into himself, he still tends to carry himself the same way he did as an awkward child. He’s tall, perhaps taller than he would like to be, and stronger than people typically expect him to be. He built himself for function over intimidation, and honestly doesn’t care about being underestimated. Years of too much work and not enough sleep has begun to visibly wear on him: he looks as exhausted as he feels, though would deny it. He’s often somewhat disheveled, always looking as if he dressed himself in a rush and didn’t have much time for personal grooming. Still, he tries to look nice, and for that reason he typically keeps his style simple, so that at least he doesn’t look like a fashion disaster. His hero gear is mostly practical, with a form-fitting royal blue suit, padded with light armor, but that mostly serves to keep him from completely destroying it, matching combat boots, and a half-mask that keeps his hair and a good portion of his face covered: he tried to full mask, but he felt like he couldn’t breath. He wears gloves, but often sheds them to use his powers, so it’s been said that no one knows why he even bothers with them.
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p e r s o n a l i t y

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Dhani has always been the type to act quickly, and often without thinking things through completely. This has carried into his life as a hero: he’s the sort that will rush into a burning building, or run right into a room knowing it’s a trap. He’d rather put himself in danger than someone else, and if he thinks he can help, he will. His powers make him feel almost invincible, and he certainly acts like it. Rushing into danger, helping teammates and friends with little to no regard for his own health, safety, or energy levels. While he no longer purposely does things that endanger his life, he also doesn’t seem to possess a healthy amount of self-preservation. He often recklessly stands up, and speaks out, for what he thinks needs to be done; consequences be damned.

In his personal life, though, he can be pretty reserved. One may wonder if his outspoken opinions are some sort of character, or if-perhaps-the costume makes him feel braver than he really is. He tends to be quiet, and only speaks up when necessary (either when he’s addressed, or something absolutely must be said). He comes off as completely genuine in all that he does or says, however, and there is no mistaking that he is genuinely kind. He’s a very good listener, and seems to be able to be completely invested and interested in anything a person says, no matter the subject. Some things may fly over his head, and sometimes he may not grasp anything, but he feels that if it’s important enough to talk about, it’s important enough to listen to. He’s not the best at small talk, or casual conversation, but he tries.

He’s always been the sort to put himself last, and will push himself past his limits to help those around him. Whether it’s in combat, or just helping a friend through a rough time, he tends to be the first to show up and the last to leave. He tends to be protective of his friends, and will help most anyone-no questions asked. He just cares about people, and always tries to do right by them. He’s always quick to offer a reassuring smile, or an affirming word, or even a hug.

He’s never been one for waiting: he wants problems solved, and he wants to be the one solving them. That’s what led him to hero work in the first place, seeing problems he knew he could help to solve. He tends to get himself into trouble by refusing to wait to see if a situation will resolve itself, but he never seems to learn. Dhani is a man of action,and in general just doesn’t like to wait: lines, cooking, commercial breaks. Waiting around, and having to sit or stand still in general, makes him a little jumpy. He likes to keep things moving, keep life flowing smoothly, and quickly. He can be a little paranoid, looking over his shoulder as if he assumes he’s being followed, but he tries not to let it run his life: he wants to live as normally as he can, all things considered.

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f l a v o r

xxxxx|| Likes || Dhani has always loved music and dancing, and much of his childhood and adolescence was spent dancing; both in his room and at family events. He loves the snow, and has never minded the cold if he gets to see some snow as well. He’s a big animal lover, and has been a vegetarian for much of his life. He loves savory foods, and loves them even more over the holidays. He used to love going camping, though he hasn’t gone in years. He wouldn’t be able to function without coffee, and he loves how comforting a bowl of good soup can be.
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xxxxx|| Dislikes || Dhani hates the heat, it’s uncomfortable, it causes extra chafing, and just is all around unpleasant. He hates traffic; sitting still in any vehicle is just a recipe for disaster, in his mind. While he used to love movies, he just can’t sit still in a loud, dark room long enough anymore. His financial situation is less than secure, and every new bill he gets just fills his heart with dread. He also can’t stand unfamiliar places, doesn’t have much of a sweet tooth, and never really got a taste for alcohol.
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xxxxx|| Fears || his identity being compromised, failing to protect his family and friends.
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xxxxx|| Secrets || His biggest secret, of course, is his identity. Beyond that, he’s mostly an open book.
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a b i l i t i e s

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xxxxx|| Superhuman Durability || While Dhani isn’t bulletproof or anything like that, he is much, much more durable than an average person. He’s harder to hurt, harder to knock down, and much harder to keep down than some others. Paired with his healing abilities (which often subconsciously work on himself, though he can choose to use them on others), he can be a fairly unstoppable force. While he can still be hurt, he’s just less likely to take serious damage from the sort of work heroes typically do.
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xxxxx|| Healing || Dhani’s healing powers are most often used on himself, healing up minor scrapes and bruises fairly quickly, and any more serious injuries much faster than an average human. He can also use his abilities on other’s: sacrificing his own energy to speed up another’s healing, and often much more quickly than his powers work on himself. While he can’t bring someone back from the dead, he can potentially stabilize someone, stop bleeding, heal wounds. This power is absolutely draining, and can have some serious side-effects for him if he isn’t careful. Still, he often uses his powers to heal others until well beyond when he should’ve stopped to rest, and he’ll very likely do it again.
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xxxxx|| Talents || Dhani is skilled in hand-to-hand combat, as well as just generally being in excellent physical shape. He doesn’t have many skills that don’t revolve around hero work, though he is a decent dancer, even if he doesn’t do much dancing anymore.
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xxxxx|| Strengths || Kind, compassionate, able to think quickly, good instincts.
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xxxxx|| Weaknesses || Doesn’t stop to rest, too quick to act, tends to be easily manipulated.

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h i s t o r y

Dhani had a pretty normal childhood, his parents and his two older sisters were constantly fluttering around, and they lived the best life they could. Dhani never had any heroic ambitions of his own, but he always looked up to the heroes growing up. He never dreamed he’d be like any of them (in fact, he used to dream of being a teacher), but he loved the idea. He was a shy child, always hiding behind his mother and oldest sister, and he didn’t come out of his shell until his teenage years.

Dhani was already fifteen when his powers started to manifest, and at first he had no idea what to do with them. For a while, he did things like let his friends hit him with baseball bats, jump out of trees, all sorts of stupid stunts. Being a hero didn’t even occur to him, at first. He was too shy to talk to anyone who hadn’t been his friend since kindergarten, how was he supposed to stand up against crime and injustice? But it turned out he couldn’t ignore things happening around him when he had the power to stop it. It started simply enough; stop a mugging in progress, save a kitten from a house fire, and before he knew it, he was feeling equipped to do the hero thing.

He was in pretty deep before he realized he wasn’t ready, and he spent a lot of his teenage years running around, fighting crime. He mostly shadowed other heroes until he turned twenty, then he started setting out by himself, though he still prefers to work with others. He feels almost like he grew up fighting crime, having spent the end of his childhood learning to be a hero. His parents never understood why he seemed to be throwing his whole life away: sleeping in class, suddenly failing assignments. He never told them, but he knows they’ve caught on; still, they just carry on their lives as if no one knows.

He put his entire life into being a hero. He gave up opportunities so they wouldn’t get in the way, a social life, potential relationships. He’s struggled holding down a job that fits with the hours he puts into hero work. He never found a good balance, instead he threw himself fully into heroics, never looking back. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if he has to stop, what he could do. Being a hero has been his entire life for over a decade, and it’s all he has.


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writer: nonconformingrole - fc: Rahul Kohli - hex code: #b85c9e

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So begins...

Dhani Batra's Story

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Kieran Valanetti Character Portrait: Piper Young Character Portrait: Dhani Batra Character Portrait: Cerys Day Character Portrait: Atticus Hawkins Character Portrait: Jena Wainwright//Adrian Robles
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

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00J E N A 0 W A I N W R I G H T 000000000000000000|000000000000000 A D R I A N 0 R O B L E S
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xxx 'Cause I'm a fighter, a tiger, see me walk through fire
xxx Try chain me up but I'll burst through, I'll defy ya
xxx Set me on fire
xxx Watch them conspire
xxx I will defy ya
xxx I'll set them on fire

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxBRN - AViVA

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xxx Are we just drowning?
xxx Can you please save us
xxx Black walls surrounding
xxx Can you please save my soul?
xxx Causing our own demise
xxx Causing our own

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxDROWN - AViVA

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G E M I N I

H E X
#D6130B 0 | 0 #0018BE

O U T F I T
Jena 0 | 0 Adrian

M A S K
Jena 0 | 0 Adrian







Jena looked to the side as she heard Malfyre and BludWynd discussing, mostly relieved she was okay, which she could tell because she was still her spunky self, if she wasn’t being sarcastic and a little bit of a mess then she wasn’t being Malfyre. She was also relieved as some of the other heroes started speaking up and giving their thoughts on what all was going on, glad she wouldn’t need to try to reel everyone in like Adrian had done, he was much better at the leader type role.

Good talks from everyone, glad I don’t have to follow that up. Adrian spoke to Jena. Though their optimism slowly changed as the villains then spoke. Icarus mostly just suggested they give time before making a decision, which made sense, everyone in the room had just got done trying to beat the living hell out of each other. But when Aboleth and Red Witch spoke things didn’t seem so gleem, but Jena wasn’t exactly surprised.

Aboleth mostly backed up what Icarus said, along with adding the point about things escalating, which was a good point. Though the last comment she made Jena knew would get under the skin of her heroes. Then Red Witch added onto her comment throwing another insult at Artemis. She really doesn’t like Artemis does she? Yeah, you should have seen them at the town hall fight, the two of them kind of hold a grudge


Gemini wasn’t sure what they were expecting out of Red Witch, but they definitely didn’t get the agreement they were hoping for, with them talking about not wanting to work together, rolling her eyes as the villain threw up air quotes. “Fine, whatever. But we ne-” Jena had started to talk but was quickly interrupted as by the villain, speaking about her presence not being needed. Jena let out a sigh as Red Witch shoved her way through the heroes and walked out of the warehouse. She ran her hand over her mask before speaking again. “Well, great. Anyways. Looks like the remaining of us can at least agree on one thing, even if we don’t trust each other, we do think we need to work together.”

Jena left the air open to let anyone else get some words out, Adrian suggested some other things in their head, but Jena mostly just ignored him.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Kieran Valanetti Character Portrait: Piper Young Character Portrait: Dhani Batra Character Portrait: Cerys Day Character Portrait: Atticus Hawkins Character Portrait: Jena Wainwright//Adrian Robles
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cerys day
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xxxwhen i burst into flames
xxxi'll leave you the dust, my love
xxxhope a bit of it will be enough
xxxto help remember the days

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As much as they tried to object, the villains eventually seemed to agree that they needed to work together. Albeit rather begrudgingly, and with more than a few insults slung at various members of the group. But she was just glad that they'd stopped fighting and bickering. She didn't grace Red Witch's comment with a reaction, but her jaw clenched just a little. Red Witch stormed out in a suitably dramatic style, and Cerys just rolled her eyes. If she didn't come back, Cerys wouldn't be sorry. Gemini suggested they begin to wrap things up, and Cerys nodded.

"We need to meet somewhere on neutral ground. I don't want to be accused of favouring one way or another, but I'm sure as hell not walking in somewhere the villains can ambush us. And perhaps somewhere a little less..." She gestured around vaguely. "Grungey?" She said vaguely. "Somewhere a little bit nicer than this anyway. Can we at least agree on that much?" She asked, desperate to just try and get things over and done with.

They eventually agreed on a time and a place, somewhere it could work for both of them and that would put them on a level footing. The meeting time was arranged to be a similar time to allow for them all to do their day jobs as normal then come to the meeting. Cerys sighed, running a hand down her face as she made her way over to Aaron. "Jesus Christ, that was a lot. Can we go grab some drinks or something? I desperately need to relax," she said, running a hand through her hair.



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atticus hawkins
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xxxstaring in the blackness
xxxat some distant star
xxxthe thrill of knowing how alone we are,
xxxunknown we are.

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Atticus smiled a little with satisfaction as Aboleth backed him up, agreeing that they needed to move on. People were tired and apparently just tired of the fighting, although Att got the impression that Lucy would have gone for another round, especially with Artemis if she'd been given the chance, before making a suitably dramatic exit. Atticus didn't miss her almost shoving Dhani out of her way, and he rolled his eyes. He was tempted to follow suit, but one of them probably needed to know what was going on, and besides, he wasn't leaving Aboleth alone with a bunch of heroes. He didn't know her all that well, but it was a matter of principle more than anything.

Eventually, the meeting wrapped up, and he sighed with relief. Now that Lucy was gone, he was feeling painfully exposed. He was ready to leave and just walk away from it all. And then he caught Dhani's eye again and... goddammit, Atticus. He knew that he should walk away, knew the thing that made him want to stay was the whole reason he should have left. And he almost managed it, managing to turn and walk out of the building and leave him behind.

But instead he found himself waiting outside, pulling his mask off and sticking to the shadows. And when Dhani came out, Att quickly grabbed his arm, pulling him to one side. "Hey. Sorry, I just..." he trailed off, suddenly regretting his decision. What was he going to say? Sorry I'm a villain? Sorry I didn't mention it?. "That was weird. And I guess... I'm sorry, I don't know what I wanted to say. Just. Didn't want to walk away from this without... I don't know, acknowledging it?"

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Kieran Valanetti Character Portrait: Piper Young Character Portrait: Dhani Batra Character Portrait: Cerys Day Character Portrait: Atticus Hawkins Character Portrait: Jena Wainwright//Adrian Robles
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P i p e r Young
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Abolethx|xoutfitx|x#3e7a4e
xxxfor us the bourgeoisie, so carefree
xxxremember when we?
xxxi don't know what you need to get by
xxxsomething for your mind

xxx
Piper smirked at Red Witch’s comment about the heroes, though her mask hid it well enough that no one could see. She had to fight the urge to roll her eyes as Lucy went on about not wanting to work with the heroes, and how much she detested them all. Piper wasn’t the biggest fan of the heroes, herself, but she apparently held her own self-preservation in higher regard. Whoever was hunting down the heroes and villains in this town was good at it, and already knew more about her than she was comfortable with.

She paid Red Witch no mind as she left the building, not even acknowledging when she asked for Piper and Icarus to keep her filled in with the details of whatever they had left to discuss. She knew that The Red Witch could take care of herself, and was sure she would get all the information she needed soon enough. Piper shot a look to Icarus; she wouldn’t call him a friend, but he was also her only real ally here now. She stayed where she was, there was no need to show weakness by moving in closer, but she knew he was better in a fight than she was. Though she would ditch him in a heartbeat if it came to it, for now they needed to be a united front
 Or, at least, as united as they could be.

Their little meeting wrapped up soon enough, and Piper was out of there as soon as they decided they were done. She spared a passing glance to Icarus, if only to make sure he couldn’t accuse her of abandoning him, and started on her way home. After double and triple checking that she wasn’t being followed, she removed her mask. It was easier to get around the town that way, and the only thing she wanted was to go home.



D h a n i Batra
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Paladinx|xoutfitx|x#b85c9e
xxxi see you up again wandering so diligent
xxxcrossing your t's as though it weren't irrelevant
xxxthey say formality, this is what they really meant:
xxxthey can be the walk and we can be the pavement

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Dhani rolled his eyes at Kieran, and while he was glad Aaron was able to get her to shut up, Dhani also knew that Aaron had caused this whole thing to escalate for the second time. He was sure Aaron would be fine, but he wasn’t entirely sure he trusted Kieran to work with the villains without doing something stupid and impulsive and ruining it for everyone. He wasn’t about to voice that concern, but it was very real. It wasn’t very long before one of the villains was calling them childish, and Red Witch was continuing mocking them all. He tuned it out, mostly, not really interested in being insulted. He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of a response. He didn’t know what he’d ever done to her, but her hatred of him seemed so personal, at this point.

After their little meeting, Dhani put his mask back on. It would be easier to get back through the city in full superhero garb than only in most of it. He glanced over to the others, and after making sure they were going to be fine, he headed for the door, but not before giving Gemini a gentle pat on the shoulder, “Great job.” Gemini had really helped gain some trust from the villains, even if it was minimal, and their efforts really helped everyone become more civil.

Soon after Dhani left the warehouse, he was pulled off to the side, and quickly felt a bit of panic set in. What now? He thought, but quickly enough he realized it was just Atticus. He felt like they were standing too close to one another, even though he was sure they were a total normal distance from one another. Atticus was apologising for
 Something. Dhani wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure Atticus knew what he was apologising for, either. He shook his head, “It’s,” It wasn’t fine, though. Not really. “I mean
 Don’t apologize, it wasn’t,” He sighed, this was awkward and terrible, and how the hell did Atticus have good hair even after the fight? “Thank you. And I’m sorry that one of my friends held you hostage.” He didn’t know what else to say, he didn’t want to make things weird, or worse. A part of him wanted to ask Atticus to pretend like nothing had ever happened between them, and yet another part of him didn’t think that was fair to either of them. It wasn’t as if they had some long history together, anyway. “You’re not hurt or anything, are you?” He started to take off a glove, “Because if you are, I mean, I have healing powers,” He quickly looked Atticus over, and grabbed for his hand without waiting for a reply. He let a warm energy flow from his own hand and into Atticus’, and healed up his hand at least a little. “There,” He- almost reluctantly- let go of Atticus’ hand. God, why had this gotten under his skin so badly. It was just the shock of knowing someone he’d slept with was a villain. That’s what he told himself, anyway.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Kieran Valanetti Character Portrait: Dhani Batra Character Portrait: Cerys Day Character Portrait: Atticus Hawkins Character Portrait: Luciana Morrison Character Portrait: Aaron Langdan
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0000Kieran0Vallenetti 00000000000000000|00000000000000000000|Aaron0 Langdan


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Kieran leaned loosely against Aaron as he helped heep her propped up against him as he held her by the waist with one arm as her left arm was slung over his shoulder. They both shot Aboleth a glare on her comment about some acting childish. "Excuse me? Us? Childish?" Kieran called out loudly, "Well...That may be true sometimes but that's a bit rude." she said as she tried to keep herself from falling over. Aaron sighed as be struggled to keep her up, "Not the time for this. Just shut up, got it?" he groaned, as his attention was brought to Red Witch who seemed to be in agreement on them being childish, but it was more so aimed towards Artemis. Which resulted in them both shooting her a harsh glare.

Turning to look as the group spoke up once more about working together, even if they didn't like it. Kieran giving Aaron a look that he would know all too well, even with the assistance of the led mask helping somewhat in displaying her emotions. They both silently watched as Red Witch and eventually Aboleth left, not really paying much attention to what they were saying. They’d run into them again at some point. Kieran shot Dhani a look as he walked out after Atticus left as well, something she thought was odd, but didn’t care as much as she would have if he didn’t even bother to come over and make sure she was okay. She’d make sure he heard enough of it later.

“Blud, do we really have to work with them? You know how I am, I don’t do well with others
.Especially people like...Well
that.” she said with a tone of annoyance. Aaron simply sighed as he nodded, “It’s up to you if you want to work with them, but in the end, we don’t really have a choice, Malfyre. It’s what we got to deal with, so so be it.” he said softly. Looking back up a small smile creased his lips as he saw Artemis shoulder her bow and make her way over to the two of them. “Oh hey, Artemis.” he said with a tone that showed he managed to cheer up slightly, but not much. He gave her a small nod, “I was actually thinking of that myself. So, it sounds like a plan-” “Hello? I am still here with you. Are you really gonna just leave me alone?” Malfyre quipped back at Aaron. Bludwynd gave a small chuckle at her comment, “Think you can walk?” he asked. “I dunno, let’s see-” she started, as she tried to push herself up and take a step forwards, seeing her balance completely tip as she lost her footing. “You may wanna catch me.” she said as she struggled to fully hold a grasp on his arm.

Aaron chuckled, propping her back up on her feet as he held her arm over his shoulder, doing his best to keep her steady. “You really are hopeless.” he chuckled. Looking at Cerys for a moment, “Do you mind having her as a third wheel? I’ll bring her home after, promise. I just think we could all use a few drinks.” Aaron said with a smile. “Besides, my nose is still fucked up due to that douchebag and his bitch ass punch. I’m gonna need you to tell me how bad it really is anyway, BloodWynd. Besides, drinks sound nice but, I don’t want to...Ya know, come between anything if you had plans for you two. I can sit out on this one, I don’t mind.” Kieran said with a small smile, which was blocked entirely by her mask. “I’m fine with anything, depends what Arty here wants to do. Ditch your punk ass, or deal with your bullshit for a bit longer. What ya say?”




Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Kieran Valanetti Character Portrait: Piper Young Character Portrait: Dhani Batra Character Portrait: Cerys Day Character Portrait: Atticus Hawkins Character Portrait: Jena Wainwright//Adrian Robles
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

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cerys day
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hex: #c7bbb4xxxxxoutfit: here
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xxxthis could be the last of all the rides we take
xxxso hold on tight and don't look back
xxxwe don't care about the message
xxxor the rules they make
xxxI'll find you when the sun goes black

xxx
Cerys had almost forgotten about Malfyre until she loudly reminded her and Aaron of her presence. They were still clearly feeling the after-effects of Red Witch’s attack, but Cerys took the fact they were complaining so much about it as a good sign. They tried to take a step or two under their own power and nearly hit the floor, and Cerys felt bad for almost laughing. Aaron wanted to bring her along, but Malfyre also seemed to not want to intrude. Cerys shrugged and pulled Malfyre’s other arm around her shoulder to help relieve some of the weight on Aaron. “Nah, we don’t mind. Beside, a chance to get to know about and drink with the infamous Malfyre? Who would want to pass up that opportunity?” She joked as they made their way out of the warehouse and towards the nearest bar.

The next meeting went considerably better than the first. Fewer injuries, less bickering, and they actually managed to hatch something close to a plan. And the meeting after that was almost amicable, with next to no arguments and them actually forming a concrete plan. They needed to do some recon on a number of sites throughout the city, and it seemed to make sense to divide and conquer. Only eight of them showed up to any subsequent missions, so they divided themselves into pairs. Well, not as much divided as made logical decisions. A hero and a villain as far as possible so they could make sure that neither side was up to anything suspicious. Those who were less suited to fighting had to be put with somebody that could protect them, which Cerys had taken as “unless you have obvious superpowers, you need to be babysat.”

Cerys hadn’t been terribly happy about that decision, but she got the impression she’d been put with Aaron just to stop her complaining. And she was okay with that. It was better than being stuck with any of the villains. She could actually work with Aaron.

They were assigned the task of tailing a potential target to see if there was anything suspicious about them, or if they could potentially give them any more clues about what they were doing. It was about 5 in the evening, giving them plenty of time to follow him for the rest of the evening. It did, however, mean that it was significantly harder to find a good hiding spot.

Cerys was hiding just outside one of the office buildings, hiding in the shadows of a fire escape to give her a slightly elevated angle of view if she needed it. She knew Aaron was somewhere nearby, watching from ground level. “Our guy’s on the move,” she said quietly, before dropping down from the fire escape and shouldering her bow.



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atticus hawkins
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hex: #88c878xxxxxoutfit: here
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xxxi'm blinded by the lights
xxxno, I can't sleep until I feel your touch
xxxI'm drowning in the night,
xxxwhen I'm like this, you're the one I trust.

xxx
Atticus didn’t know whether to feel better or worse when Dhani seemed to feel just as awkward and uncomfortable about the whole thing. But goddammit, he was still gracious, apologising for one of his friends attacking him. They were on opposite sites, that was what they were supposed to do, why the hell was he even apologising? They were supposed to hate each other based on who they were and yet
 Atticus couldn’t do that. Was it because Dhani didn’t seem to just see him as another villain? Everyone else had seen him walk in with Lucy and had made up their minds about him, but Dhani was still here, still being civil.

And then Dhani started asking about whether or not he was hurt. Atticus began to say no, he wasn’t hurt, not really. But Dhani took his hand and Atticus had to resist the temptation to pull away. But it wasn’t for the reason he should have pulled away, it wasn’t just because here was a hero, making sure he was okay, even though he knew. It was because he was afraid he’d see something that, for some ungodly reason, he didn’t want to see. And it was stupid, if he hadn’t seen it before, why would he see it now?

But a rush of warmth ran up Atticus’ hand, stitching the skin back together on his knuckles and mending the damage he’d done by punching Malfyre. And then Dhani let go of his hand, and Atticus almost felt sorry about that. “Thank you,” he said. There was a moment when he thought about doing something crazy, but instead, he just smiled awkwardly. “We
 I should go. Before someone comes out and
 yells at me for fraternising with a hero. Or at you for fixing up a villain,” he said. “Thanks again for
 well everything.” He had no idea why turning around and walking away was so damn hard. Dhani was supposed to be just another guy he’d slept with who’d turned out to be a hero.

And then, of course, someone had decided to pair the two of them up for the mission. He had no idea who decided on that, other than apparently he needed to be paired up with a hero who could “protect him” given that he apparently couldn’t protect himself. As if he didn’t have more experience with knives and guns than any of them. But he’d bitten his tongue to stop anyone questioning why he was so upset over Dhani specifically. They had been told to try and get into the basement of a particular building, because they’d gotten intel that there could be information on them in there. If they found anything, they were to destroy it. Because they needed to look low key, Atticus was dressed a little more “normally” according to Lucy, and he felt deeply out of his comfort zone. The weight of the gun concealed at his hip wasn’t doing much to ease that. He was waiting for Dhani at their prearranged meeting spot and was wondering what exactly would happen if he just left and didn’t come back. But something made him stay.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Kieran Valanetti Character Portrait: Piper Young Character Portrait: Dhani Batra Character Portrait: Cerys Day Character Portrait: Atticus Hawkins Character Portrait: Luciana Morrison
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LUCIANA MORRISON
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Red Witch | Mask | Outfit | #571616
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xxx Yeah someone pour it in
xxx Make it a dirt dance floor again
xxx Say your prayers and stomp it out
xxx When they bring that in
xxx Bleed it out digging deeper just to throw it away

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Luciana was already at the apartment with a bottle of wine lounging on the couch when Atticus finally showed up, still half way in her villain garb. She said a small remark about him taking so long and turned her focus to him when she asked about if she missed anything else after she left. He went into some detail about what some of the others said but rolled her eyes as she went back to flipping through the channels for something to watch. Lucy was thinking of talking to Att right then about him and his little boy toy, but so much had happened today and didn’t have the energy to yell at him at the moment and wanted to relax.

There had been talk about another meeting and after a lot of discussing people’s conflicts and dates they finally figured one out, and it was a neutral location that both parties had scoped out so they would both feel comfortable. Luciana could care less as she wasn’t worried about the heroes, even publicly saying it, though she knew Att and Piper wanted something more comforting than blindly walking into a warehouse again.

The meeting went as smoothly as Red Witch expected, she mostly played with her cuts and messed with blood around her fingers as the others talked, her feet kicked onto the table. One of the few times she spoke was when the pairing of groups came up and someone suggested Paladin and Icarus being together. She didn’t trust Atticus working with this hero, and she definitely didn't trust Paladin, but if he didn’t get paired with Icarus, he’d get paired with her, and Icarus didn’t want that to happen, probably knowing there would be some accident to happen to Paladin. She sat back as she also noted she “didn’t want to babysit the little human” referencing Artemis, which caused another heated argument, but over time the pairs were finally made and she would be working with Malfyre, the hero she held temporarily hostage over during the warehouse situation.

When Luciana and Attitcus got back to their apartment after the recent meeting she quickly had a talk with him, talking about he shouldn’t be working with that hero and not to be an idiot. “They're tools, Atticus. A means to an end. Do you really think we're all going to be the best of friends after this? Like they won't try and turn us in the moment after we're all safe and sound? They're still heroes, Att. Don't lose your head." Luciana didn’t really give him a chance to talk back as she said some other things, she promised if he didn’t get his shit together, that he would do it for him. Lucy wouldn’t admit it outloud to Att, but she cared about him and was worried about what the heroes would do.

Before the meeting came, Luciana visited the record and book store again, seeing the same girl again, Kieran. She mostly ignored her as she flipped through some records, though looking up a few times and listening to her conversation with Aaron. Something with how she spoke seemed familiar, specifically her vocabulary. When Lucy went up to pay her sleeve slipped up on accident and tried covering it, but knew Aaron and Kieran had to have seen it. Luciana put on a fake smile and said some excuse about her cat scratching her, though she didn't own one but they wouldn't know that.

Red Witch took her time getting to her meeting spot with Malfyre, actually showing up a bit late, though not caring if the hero had to wait on her. Their mission was a fairly easy one, though she could have asked for something a little bit more fun. “Hey!” She called out, seeing the hero on their phone and distracted, letting out a small chuckle seeing that she startled her. “Stealing a laptop. Sounds easy enough.” Red Witch looked over to the building they would be going into, information said their target was on the second floor, and she quickly spotted a fire escape leading up to it.

“So, we could go through the front, have some fun, and fight our way to the target, or we could go the boring route of the fire escape once it gets a bit darker. What you think little miss hero?” Luciana knew what the hero would say, probably picking the fire escape as the way to go, but was curious how they would pick one scenario over the other.

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Character Portrait: Dhani Batra Character Portrait: Atticus Hawkins
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D h a n i Batra
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Paladinx|xoutfit & jacketx|x#b85c9e
xxxi think you know that you won't be away too long
xxxyou know that i'm not that strong
xxxjust one look and i can hear a bell ring
xxxone more look and i forget everything

xxx
Honestly, Dhani had expected the subsequent meetings to go worse than they had. Not that he didn’t have any faith in people, but he thought he understood the kinds of people he was dealing with. Apparently, he was wrong, and they had been right to give the villains the benefit of a doubt. For the time being, anyway.

There was some arguing when it came down to pairing up for the missions, and Dhani had tried to suggest some other options, but in the end he wound up being paired with Atticus. It wasn’t as if Dhani didn’t like Atticus, but he wasn’t too thrilled by the idea of having to spend extended amounts of time with him. He needed to create a distance between them, and that was hard to do if they were working together. He was an adult, though, and being a hero was all he had. He wasn’t going to let this get in his way. Not when there was so much on the line. But he couldn’t stop thinking about Atticus pulling him aside to apologize for how weird things were, or the injuries on his hand (that he’s sustained by punching a friend in the face), or how he’d thanked him, twice. Dhani couldn’t forget the look in his eyes, or the way neither of them seemed to be able to look at each other. Maybe it was because they were afraid they’d give it all away. Dhani wasn’t exactly accustomed to seeing the guys he hooked up with at work, and it felt very strange.

Beyond that, he didn’t like the idea of Kieran being paired with Red Witch. He tried not to be too vocal about it, but it didn’t seem like a good idea to him. He knew that she could hold her own, but when he considered what had happened in the warehouse, it made him a little uncomfortable. He couldn’t dwell on it, though, because he had his own job to do.

Breaking into a basement meant he had to stay low key, and not get caught. Dhani hated this sort of thing; he was much more suited for running into fires and punching people, so this was going to be a little out of his element, and he was sure everyone knew that. If he could keep his wits about him, though, he would be fine.

Atticus was already at their meeting place when he’d arrived. Suddenly, Dhani worried that he had been running late, but he quickly shook it off. It was fine. “Hey,” The greeting was really more of an announcement that he had arrived than a friendly hello. Dhani smiled, more amused than anything, and leaned in so only Atticus would hear him, “Why did you dress exactly like you’re planning on breaking into a basement?” He stood back up and took a step back, jerking his head to the side, “You ready?”

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Character Portrait: Dhani Batra Character Portrait: Atticus Hawkins
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000D H A N I 0 B A T R A 00000000000000000000000000| A T T I C U S 0 H A W K I N S

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#b85c9e 0 | 0 #88c878

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dhani 0 | 0 atticus



Att was grateful for the soft warning of the hero’s approach as it pulled him out of his thoughts. He gave Dhani an awkward smile, then mentally chastised himself for doing so. Lucy had warned him about Dhani, told him to just cut the hero off. Atticus hadn’t been able to do that. He told himself it was just because they were working together at the minute, they needed to be able to do that much. But there was a tiny part of him that just didn’t want to.

When Dhani leaned in, there was a moment when Att swore his heart skipped a beat, but then Dhani’s comment made him roll his eyes. Anyone else might have received a scowl. Dhani just received a raised eyebrow. “Red Witch told me I needed to ‘dress normally.’ She figured a guy in a suit would be more memorable and draw more attention. And apparently, ‘teenage hoodlum’ was a better and more inconspicuous look,” he said quietly in reply. God, he really hated it. “And ready as I’ll ever be, I guess.”

Picking the lock was easy, almost too easy, and it put Atticus on edge as he stepped inside, expecting a security alarm to start blaring the minute he stepped through the door. But it was silent, and it did nothing to comfort him. He wasn’t sure if the feeling in his gut was just anxiety or his precognition kicking in in the background, warning him of some vague danger. “Looks clear.”

Dhani did his best to hide the laughter threatening to bubble from his mouth. Really, Atticus looked just fine. A little out of his element, but fine. Dhani wasn’t about to say that, though. Instead, he just shook his head. He needed to remind himself that this was a mission, and he needed to stay on his guard. Atticus didn’t seem too confident, though, and that was a little worrying. He had to remind himself that everything was going to be fine. He could handle this. They would be fine.

Atticus got the door open quickly enough, and he’d stepped inside before Dhani could offer to go in first. Dhani was inside as soon as Atticus confirmed it was clear. He glanced around quickly, there was a little bit of ground to cover. Something in his gut wanted Atticus to stay close, and he wasn’t sure if that was because something about this felt off, or because
 No, this seemed too easy. Dhani glanced at Atticus out of the corner of his eye, as if trying to determine how he was feeling.

Dhani didn’t want Atticus to feel like he was being babysat, but he also didn’t want to assume that Atticus was comfortable with the situation. But there were multiple rooms to search through, and Dhani didn’t want to spend more time on this than they had to. He sighed, “Let’s get started.”

Att was a little glad when they got inside and Dhani didn’t immediately suggest splitting up. He’d never done anything like this. His family had always had people lower down the food chain to do the dirty work. Whenever he had to
 deal with somebody, he was always in a position where he had the upper hand, where he was entirely in control of the situation. Here, he had no control, and there wasn’t a goddamn thing he could do to change that.

He found himself glancing towards Dhani to try and read him, to see his read of the situation. Dhani seemed
 prepared. On edge but not in the same way Att was. He seemed confident. And that reassured Atticus a little.

“We should stick together,” he said as Dhani said they should get started. “I mean. We have no idea what we’re walking in to, and we’re more vulnerable alone.” He tried the first door and found it locked, and threw a grin back at Dhani. “And I have the lockpicks.” He said with a smirk as he unlocked the door again. Inside were stacks and stacks of nondescript cardboard boxes. Nothing that immediately flagged up anything suspicious. Att drew his knife and cut the tape sealing one.

“Nothing here. Boxes of office supplies, by the looks of it. Should we try door number two?” Att asked.

When Atticus suggested they stick together, Dhani nodded. He would be lying if he said that didn’t somehow feel relieving. Atticus tried a door and, well, of course it was locked. But the smile Attcus shot at Dhani pulled all the air out of Dhani’s lungs. For a moment all Dhani could think about was how his sister couldn’t be convinced that the reason Dhani couldn’t go to dinner with her was that he had a date. Wait. No. What the hell is the matter with me? Well, he had a few ideas, but nothing he could linger on. This was neither the time or place for that.

The room before them just held stacks of boxes. It would be impossible to look through them all, and most of them looked factory sealed, anyway. Still, he looked into the box Atticus had opened. Nothing interesting, “Yeah, searching in here any more would probably be a waste of time.”

The next few rooms were equally useless. Chemical closet, a bathroom, more holiday decorations than belonged in one room, outdated office furniture. It seemed like a lot of this basement was used as storage, which made sense, but the longer they spent looking, the more on edge Dhani felt. The longer they were here, the more likely it felt that something was going to go terribly wrong.

When they came upon a room with some old filing cabinets, Dhani couldn’t help but feel they were either going to be empty, or filled with nearly ancient documents that would be of no use to anyone, but he knew they needed to check anyway. “Okay,” He practically whispered, before raising the volume of his voice just a bit as he continued to speak, “How about we each pick a side,” He vaguely pointed to the row of cabinets, not really caring where either of them started, “And we can work towards the middle?”

Room after room just seemed to be completely unremarkable, and Att wasn’t sure if he was relieved by that or not. If there was nothing here, if the information they’d gotten was wrong, then it would explain the lack of security. It was entirely possible this was a wild goose chase. But a room filled with filing cabinets presented slightly more of an opportunity. Att nodded at Dhani’s plan. “Sounds good. I’ll take this side,” he said, keeping his voice little more than a whisper. The first filing cabinet was, as expected, worthless. Nothing of use. Nothing that even gave them important information on who they were dealing with. The second and third cabinets were the same. Old resumes, notes from meetings, company circulars. Nothing useful. Or at least, that was what he thought until the last drawer of the bottom cabinet was locked. The lock was new, recently used, and slightly harder for Att to crack. But he managed, and got it open. At first, it was just financial statements.

Then as he sorted through them, one folder caught his attention. Nondescript, easy to miss or just flick past. But a name on it caught his attention. Vulcan. One of the heroes that had recently been found dead. Sure enough, inside the folder was information on the hero. His civilian identity, his powers, his weaknesses
 his secrets. “Dhani, I’ve got some-” He stopped as he looked over at the hero. Or, rather, at the huge, humanoid shadow lurking behind him, a glint of something metallic and dangerous in it’s hand. Everything seemed to go into slow motion. The glint became a knife.

Att didn’t think. He didn’t have to think, and that was the terrifying thing. He had the trigger pulled almost before it had even processed that he’d drawn the gun. A neat headshot, a wound somebody would have no chance of surviving, just the way he’d been taught. The man fell, the knife clattering against the ground, the sound a contrast to the soft thump of a body hitting the floor.

He knew he needed to say something, wanted to say something. But what the hell did he say? He wasn’t sure he could vocalise anything. His head was spinning a little as he just shoved the gun back into its holster, flicking through the drawer at speed to try and find files. “We need to get out of here, I’m guessing his friends will be along at any minute,” he managed to force out. The shaking in his hands only seemed to worsen as he found familiar names. Red Witch. Aboleth. Paladin. Icarus. “Just check for locked drawers, and just
 fucking break them open or something,” he said, his voice cracking a little.

These filing cabinets seemed to be another bust; full of old notes, records of long-terminated employees, and other details that threatened to bore Dhani half to death. He thought about calling it, moving on, but then Atticus said his name. He turned to look in that direction, and confusion filled his face as Atticus drew a gun. Dhani was looking over his shoulder as Atticus shot, and the would-be assailant hit the floor. All before Dhani even fully realized what was happening. He turned to look back at Atticus. What was the appropriate thing to say in this situation? Thank you?

“Are you-” Atticus started speaking, and Dhani knew he was right. They would very likely be swarmed in a matter of minutes. “Okay.” Atticus said to check for locked drawers, and that’s exactly what Dhani did. He suddenly wasn’t very worried about making noise, and when he found a locked drawer, he just pulled the one above it out and tossed it aside so he could get to the files inside. He recognized every name he came across. Side effect of being at this for so long. He couldn’t dwell on it. He could let the sadness, fear and anger fester in his stomach later, he didn’t have time for that now.

Dhani heard footsteps down the corridor, they weren’t worried about being quiet anymore, either. They still had a few drawers to check, and Dhani wanted to be sure they found all the files. “Finish searching the drawers,” He didn’t look at Atticus while he spoke, instead he focused on stacking what he’d found in the space between them, “I can maybe buy you a few minutes, but you need to move fast.” He had no idea how many people there were, or what sort of weaponry they might have, but it wouldn’t be the first fight he’d run into blind. With any luck, it wouldn’t be the last.

He shut the door behind him when he left the room; every second mattered in these situations, and he would do every little thing he could do to help Atticus.

Normally, he would have wanted to try to get a head count so he could get a grasp on what was going on, but the first guy he saw was reaching for something. A weapon. Gun? Knife? It didn’t matter, Dhani’s best shot was getting to him before he had the chance to use it. He broke out into a sprint, dropping his shoulder and colliding with the man. He heard a gunshot go off behind him as they both hit the floor, and was faintly aware of the gun clattering out of the man’s hand. There was a quick struggle, but ultimately Dhani knew he couldn’t waste too much time on one guy. That was a surefire way to get your ass kicked.

When Dhani had become a hero, he never thought he’d be the kind of guy that actually liked the fighting. But he did. It made him feel alive. Like he was real. A well-placed punch and Dhani’s would-be assailant was out cold. As he started to stand, what would have been a blow right to the back of his head hit his upper back instead. He spun around, connecting his elbow to the man’s jaw and watched him hit the ground.

They both became much more careless, throwing the useless files to the floor and throwing the files they were after into the space between them. There were just too many of them and that was making Atticus feel almost nauseous about how many people were subject to this. But they didn’t have time to focus on that. He didn’t stop as Dhani told him to finish searching, but he did shoot a look at the hero. “Dhani, don’t-” he started, but he was gone, the door shut between them. Att swallowed and stayed searching. He was torn between wanting to help and that haunting image of the body on the ground only feet away from him, the pool of blood surrounding him. He knew that he couldn’t afford to hesitate if it came down to it, and he didn’t want to do that to Dhani if he froze up. So he gathered as many files as he could, double checking drawers he’d already checked to make sure there was nothing there. A battered but intact bag was abandoned on the floor, and Atticus shoved as many of them as he could into it, slinging the bag onto his shoulder. And then he took a deep breath and pulled open the door, just in time to see Dhani drive an elbow into a man’s face.

“Let’s go,” he yelled, grabbing Dhani’s arm and pulling him down the corridor. But at the sight of more men coming towards them, Atticus knew he wasn’t getting out of there without firing a few more rounds. He shoved down the sickening feeling in his stomach and drew the gun again. The men facing them down already had their guns drawn. They clearly weren’t normal security guards. These were the most dangerous kind of people, the shoot first, ask later type, and Att knew there was no way in hell they were going to be talked down. There was only one way they were going down.

Att aimed and fired. Two shots, a shot to the thigh each. One of them dropped his gun in pain and shock, the other shot at them but apparently decided at the last moment that Att was the bigger target now he had the files. The delayed decision didn’t give Att time to react and the bullet hit him square in the shoulder. Not his shooting arm. It was fine. Keep shooting, don’t think too much, don’t think about it. Shot to the stomach, enough to take him down. The pattern seemed to keep recurring until they finally made it out. Att only stopped to wipe down the gun and throw it in the first trash can they passed. It was disposal of evidence and the fact that he couldn’t bear the feeling of it in his hand any more.

One moment, Dhani and Atticus were running through the halls, the next moment Atticus was shooting. Was shot. Dhani didn’t have the luxury of reacting in the moment, he’d have to save it for later. Staying calm was sometimes the only thing that stopped a whole operation from falling apart. They didn’t slow down much, even once they’d gotten out of the building. They needed to get as far from there as they could. When they briefly paused so Atticus could get rid of his gun, Dhani couldn’t keep a bit of concern off his face. It was a little while before he could believe they weren’t being followed, and a short while longer before he spoke up, “I don’t think we’re being followed.” Not like it mattered, they knew everything about them anyway.

He pulled Atticus away, out of view from prying eyes, “Let me see your shoulder.” That was maybe a little too forceful, so he added, “Please,” though he didn’t intend on letting Atticus say no. Atticus had gotten hurt, and as a hero who’d built his entire career on protecting people, Dhani felt like he’d failed. At least he could heal him up, it was the least he could do, really.

It wasn’t long before Dhani was staring straight at Att’s shoulder, brows knit together in concentration. He placed a gentle hand on the wound, softly saying “Sorry,” before Atticus even had a chance to complain. He could feel the gentle warmth of his powers extending past his hand to Atticus, and he knew that this would take a touch longer than healing some scraped up knuckles. “I’m not much of a careful planner,” He said, almost as if to cut the silence, like he could bear to heal Atticus without some sort of noise to comfort him, “If not for you, I’m sure that would have ended much worse than it did.” He cleared his throat, “So, thank you.”

Att wasn’t even sure where they were going, only that they needed to stay moving. He barely even heard Dhani say they weren’t being followed, the words only registering as Dhani pulled him out of sight. It was only then that everything seemed to come crashing back down as the adrenaline started to fade. He dropped the bag almost unconsciously, the pain in his shoulder starting to kick back in. The force behind Dhani’s request surprised Att, but even before the hero said please, Att knew it was out of care. Goddammit, of course he’d ended up with one of the good ones. So many heroes were cocky and overconfident and easy to dislike. But no matter what Lucy told him, Att couldn’t hate Dhani. He trusted him. And there was a tiny part of his brain that told him that was dangerous. But as Att managed to pull back his jacket to give Dhani better access to the wound, he realised he didn’t care.

Warmth flowed into the wound from Dhani’s hand, already taking an edge of the pain. Att sighed a little, almost unconsciously. The warmth was soothing, the physical contact oddly grounding. Dhani’s words surprised him a little. Att smiled a little and shook his head. “I’m sure you would have managed just fine,” he said. “All I did was fire a few shots.” The echoes of every shot fired, of the too still bodies, of the blood, they seemed to be haunting him more than the fading pain in his shoulder. He knew he probably wouldn’t have done anything else to stop them. If he hadn’t taken them down, they could have done much worse damage to Att or Dhani. But he’d wanted to leave all this behind. He’d wanted to walk away from it, and instead he’d walked into all of this.

“Thank you,” he said quietly to Dhani. “You didn’t have to do this, I don’t think anyone would have blamed you. But you did so
 thank you. And I’m sorry I hesitated. I probably could have taken them down quicker but
 yeah. Thank you.”

Atticus thanking him for the healing was almost too much for Dhani, he wasn’t doing it out of some sort of altruism (at least, not in his mind), he just genuinely wouldn’t be able to live with himself if Atticus walked away from this with a gunshot wound. Of course he had to do this; it would haunt him if he didn’t. Every death, hero or villain, felt so intensely personal. It didn’t matter how you felt about a person when they were being hunted down on the merits of having powers and daring to use them. This was different, and Dhani knew that, but it was all blurring together in his mind. He’d never once questioned his choice to be a hero, even if it had never been much more than a teenage impulse.

But here he was, healing a wound in Atticus’ shoulder, wondering for the first time if this was really worth it. If someone asked Dhani who Atticus was to him, he wouldn’t know what to tell them. But he knew that he didn’t like hearing Att apologize for hesitating to shoot someone. He couldn’t help but wonder what kind of life Atticus had lived that he felt the need to apologize for that. “I try not to nitpick the people who save my life.” Dhani looked Att in the eyes as if he were searching for some deep secret, “You did fine. Don’t ever apologize for being human. Whatever mistakes you think you made, we’re both alive.” He knew the words were just words, and they probably wouldn’t help. They never helped him, anyway.

Really, he was just glad neither of them were more seriously hurt.

The healing was finished, but Dhani couldn’t bring himself to move his hand; the physical contact was soothing. He may have been healing Atticus’ body, but he felt like he was healing his own soul in the process, too. It was perhaps a touch dramatic, but it was always easier to forgive his mistakes when he could so tangibly make amends for them. “Are you gonna be okay?”

Dhani’s words were words that Att wasn’t sure he’d ever heard from anyone before. Everyone seemed to expect perfection from him, expected him to be the perfect villain, the perfect assassin. So to hear someone saying he didn’t have to apologise for being human
 he had to look away from Dhani for a moment to gather himself. Att could feel the heat fading in his shoulder, the pain all but gone, but Dhani’s hand stayed there as the hero asked if Att was going to be okay. There was a moment, a thought that persisted a little too long, where Att was tempted to do something that was probably reckless and stupid. But instead, he just forced a smile and nodded.

“Yeah. I’ll be fine. I, uh
 Text me when you get home?” He asked, almost without thinking. “I’ll bring the files, have a look through them later, see what I can get from them,” he said in recovery, picking the bag back up. He didn’t want to walk away. His feet seemed rooted to the spot. “I’ll see you soon, I guess,” he said. “And
 seriously, thank you.” His body finally seemed to comply as he turned away from Dhani and walked away.

Dhani smiled softly when Atticus tried to assure him that he would be fine. He wasn’t so sure he bought it, but he wasn’t about to pry. Att asked him to text him when he got home, and Dhani nodded in response to that. He would, for sure. He would be texting his sister, anyway. Maybe he’d tell her his date well. When Atticus said he’d take the files, Dhani nodded, “Okay, let me know what you find.” Neither of them seemed to want to leave, and Dhani thought about asking Atticus to come with him, but instead he said, “Yeah,” The next meeting would be coming up, and who knows where they would go from there. Dhani wasn’t sure he cared so much about the content of any meeting as much as the people that were there.

When Atticus thanked him again, Dhani shook his head, “It’s no problem.” He wanted to tell Atticus that he would never leave him in pain, and that seeing him hurt was the worst part of his evening, but instead he watched Atticus walk away. He checked his phone, Kieran’s mission had gone well, and she was okay. At least someone’s night had gone as planned. He realized then that he was tired. With a sigh, Dhani turned around and started towards home.

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Characters Present

Character Portrait: Kieran Valanetti Character Portrait: Dhani Batra Character Portrait: Atticus Hawkins Character Portrait: Luciana Morrison
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LUCIANA MORRISON
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Red Witch | Mask | Outfit | #571616
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xxx Yeah someone pour it in
xxx Make it a dirt dance floor again
xxx Say your prayers and stomp it out
xxx When they bring that in
xxx Bleed it out digging deeper just to throw it away

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Luciana strolled through alleyways and stuck to the shadows as headed to the other side of town. She kept a cold stare on her face as she kept going, not caring about what was in her away and shoulder checking the occasional bum that was in her way. Lucy thought she already took care of this problem after talking with Atticus about the consequences about what would happen, the things that could go wrong if you trusted a hero. Heroes don’t care about if you're a nice villain or a mean villain, just not being a hero meant they wanted to lock you up. Red Witch knew this from even before she became a villain, the heroes pushed her to become who she was.

It took awhile for Lucy to get to the heroes apartment, it was much harder tracking down where he lived. A couple days ago she dug around online tracking him down, barely remembering his name from when he stayed over at their apartment. Dhani. But luckily he did have a unique look so that helped her track him down. All she got was an apartment complex, no floor or door number. As Luciana arrived she snuck into the main building with a lobby and one small light on, scanning mailboxes for any mention of the name Dhani. There was another name that looked familiar but she skipped over it, quickly finding the mailbox she was looking for. Dhani Batra. Had to be him. Apartment number 3-D.

Red Witch found the apartment, there weren't too many buildings so tracking down 3-D didn’t take long. She assumed the door would be locked, so she snuck around the back and climbed up a few AC units and found the window that corresponded with his apartment, quickly smashing it and climbing inside, brushing the glass out of her way and walked through the apartment, confirming it was 3-D by some mail left out, and sat and waited for Dhani to get home. Luciana took her phone out and sent Atticus a message.

Att-Att-
Could you pick up some pizza on your way back, gonna be back a little later.


Red Witch probably waited for about 30 minutes to an hour before she heard the deadbolt on the door be unlocked and sat up waiting for her prey to enter, sitting in the dark on the kitchen counter. Dhani walked in and closed the door behind him before he turned a lamp on, and seeing the Red Witch staring him down, knife in one hand and blood flowing around her the fingers of her other hand, an open cut on her palm. Luciana let out a chuckle as the man stumbled and knocked over the lamp, but quickly going over and turning the main lights on.

“Can’t be so clumsy Dhani boy, or do you only want me to call you Paladin?” Red Witch asked as her eyes watched the knife she twirled around her fingers. She looked up as Paladin asked her what she was doing here. “What? I thought we were all partners now? Heroes and Villains, working together for our own well-being. I can’t come by for a cup of coffee?” Luciana trailed on, as she stood up and walked through her kitchen accidentally knocking his coffee pot onto the floor. “Oops.” A smirk came across her face, but Dhani couldn’t see it under his mask but she knew he knew it wasn’t on accident.

Dhani tried to say something but Luciana quickly cut him off. “No. You listen here. I know about you and Icarus. A hero and villain being so close, honestly makes me sick.” She started talking, circling back around to the counter, scraping the knife in her hand across the counter. “I don’t want to hurt you Dhani boy. I just want to warn you. Stay away from the villain. Do your job and forget about him. All that will come from this is more problems and
” Lucy paused for a second, as the blood from her palm started to flow around her hand, before disappearing as she closed her fist. “There will be bloodshed if you don’t.”

Before Luciana could say anything, the door to the apartment opened up and a girl walked in, someone who she was somewhat familiar with. Kieran. The girl from the record store. Red Witch turned quickly, knife in hand ready to strike if either of the people made any sort of move. Barely listening as Kieran spoke. Lucy didn’t care about hurting Dhani, but she didn’t want to hurt Kieran. “You know who I am
 I can tell by the look on your face darling. Which means you know what I’m capable of. One wrong move, and I’ll bleed you both dry, and nothing this hero can do to save you.” Her eyes darted between the two.

Luciana knew she had to act quickly, she wasn’t here to fight as much as she wouldn’t mind giving Paladin a few cuts, but Kieran was here too. They didn’t know each other well besides saying hi a few times at the store, didn’t mean she wanted to hurt her though. “How about this, you let me walk out of here Paladin, and I don’t hurt the girl. And you both forget I was here, say anything to anyone, I’ll reveal your secret to everyone. Just remember what I said.” She watched as the two glanced at each other and knew this was her chance. Lucy threw the knife up at the light, shattering the bulb and causing it to go dark in the apartment and pushed a stool towards Paladin in case he tried to stop her. She moved quickly through the apartment and went out the window she came in through, quickly disappearing and heading back to her apartment. Hopefully this dumbass would listen to her words since Atticus didn’t.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Kieran Valanetti Character Portrait: Dhani Batra Character Portrait: Luciana Morrison
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Kieran Vallanetti
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Anti-Hero | Outfitx|xhex: #575772
xxxOops I, did it again, I
xxxForgot what I was losing my mind about
xxxI only wrote this down to make you press rewind
xxxAnd send a message, "I was young and a menace"
Kieran was tired and felt physically exhausted. All she wanted to do was go home, change into something comfortable and more than likely drink herself into a coma off of the case of beers that she kept in her apartment. All she wanted to do was relax and unwind, and forget about the bullshit of the day until she had to start working on finishing the encryption on the files. Something she wans't exactly looking forward to do, seeing how it would roughly take at least a few hours. After a few short minutes she made her way back to the old and rather shabby apartments, and ducked down the hallway and easily into her apartment number, 3-A. Her apartment was on the third floor, and the first apartment on the floor. It wasn't exactly large by any means, but it wasn't entirely small either. A total of four rooms, which were bedroom, living room, kitchen, and extra room, excluding the bathroom which was considered just an extra room according to the landlord.

She unlocked the door and quickly bolt locked it behind her, ripping off her mask and tossing it to the side and onto the couch as she exhaled sharply. "Mo, Lily? Where are ya lazy fucks?" she called out. Not long after, the sound of soft skittering across the hardwood floors were heard as two small furballs ran to her, immediately clawing at her legs. She smiled and crouched down as she quickly pet both of the ferrets and made her way to her room, the rodents quickly following suit behind her. She tossed her uniform into the corner after getting changed into something much more comfortable. Exiting her room she sent Dhani one more message and tossed her phone onto the couch before she made her way into her kitchen, looking for anything to eat before she got ready for the night. Kieran grabbed one of the bottles in the fridge and popped it open with her powers, shooting the bottle cap into the trash as she made her way back to the living room. Kieran yawned softly as she sat down on the couch, Lily quickly clambered onto the couch and made herself comfortable on Kieran's lap, as Mo, the much younger ferret was having trouble getting up onto the couch. She chuckled and scooped up the small furball in her hand and placed him next to her, seeing how he easily nuzzled up next to her. Normally, anyone would else would find the life she had rather lonely and boring, living alone with her two ferrets. But Kieran was rather content with the life she had, even if at times it did get a little, lonesome.

Kieran mindlessly found herself looking through what on the tv, but nothing of real interest showed up. It was only when she was about to finally find something of interest that she heard a faint sound come from down the hallway. Which was where Dhani's apartment was. She shook her head after a moment of looking at the direction of where the main door was, he probably just walked into the door again or something. Shrugging it off she went to pay attention back to Netflix, when she heard something crash onto the floor. Coming from the same place as before. Normally it wouldn't have been much of a bother, but something wasn't sitting right with her about this. Kieran moved Lily off of her lap as she stood up, and began to make her way to the front door of her apartment, slipping in one of her knives into her sweatpants pockets, just in case. What the fuck is this idiot up to?, Kieran thought to herself as she scooped up both of the ferrets, placing Lucy along her neck where she rested happily, and easily stuffing Mo in her pant's pocket, his head just sticking out as he liked to watch as they went on walks in the past.

Kieran slowly exited her apartment, being as quiet as she could. If there was something going wrong in his apartment, she would want to maintain the element of surprise at least. As Kieran closed in on Dhani's apartment, voices could be heard coming from inside. She couldn't tell what was being said, or who was talking, but all she knew was that it was Dhani, and someone else. After a minute, she quickly pushed the door open, and what awaited her was something she wasn't expecting. Red Witch was holding Dhani at fucking knifepoint, of course she was. Kieran shot him a look, one he knew all too well. One which practically said, they'd be talking about this later. "Okay, look. Whatever this idiot did, I can probably guarantee you he deserves it, but c'mon...Be calm, and be reasonable about this. Alright?" Kieran said with a shaky voice, trying her best to act as if she didn't entirely know who this individual was. But apparently she wasn't doing such a good job with it, as the next thing Red Witch said, was confirming that Kieran did, in fact, know who she was. Kieran was going to speak up, but before she could, Red Witch continued, saying how if either one of them made the wrong move, they'd both be killed on the spot. While it was a rather good threat, Kieran knew that Red Witch wouldn't want to purposefully kill someone, nevermind hurt them. If she did in fact not care, why did she save Kieran earlier while they were trying to get the information files? Some things weren't exactly adding up. Shaking her head, Kieran remained silent as she thought about what to do, or say.

Kieran slowly nodded as Red Witch said that if Paladin simply just acted like they didn't see anything, that they'd be let go and without any bloodshed. Playing the part of an unarmed and innocent bystander was something Kieran knew how to do all too well. "I think she has a rather valid point...I don't really wanna die right now, would be a rather disappointing way to end the night, ya know? Especially cuz of your bitch ass." she said with a small smirk, glancing at Dhani. But what she didn't expect, was what happened next. The sound of glass shattering, and the room going dark. "Oh fucking great, did she just-" she exclaimed, not caring if anyone saw, she quickly used her abilities to help stop the glass from making any contact with her or Dhani, as Red Witch escaped through the window and was clearly gone.

With ease, Kieran stopped using her powers which kept the glass suspended in the air, it clattered to the floor the moment she stopped using her powers. Kieran shot him a glare, placing both Lily and Mo on the ground, away from the glass as she told them to return to their apartment, as the door was still open. Slowly, Kieran looked back at Dhani, with a glare he knew all too well. "Are you fucking kidding me, Dhani? What the fuck did you do in those few hours to piss her off, huh? We were just on a mission and-" reality finally hit Kieran. Back on her mission with Red Witch, she handed her the phone, which still had the messages she had been spying on. Fuck, she thought to herself. Quickly regaining composure, if Dhani didn't know, that was fine. All that mattered was that she had a little talk with him. "Dhani, I am going to say this once, and once only. Okay?" She said with a small smirk as she slowly enclosed the space between them, using a flick of her wrist, Dhani was on his feet and held in place. "Do not, and I repeat, do not piss off the woman that could bleed you like a damn animal, okay? Especially if I have to come save your ass? It may be hot sometimes what she can do, but that is beside the point. Next time you decide to piss off a woman, make sure it isn't anywhere even close to my proximity." She said with a smirk, and released Dhani with another flick of her wrist that sent him up to the ceiling and back down on the floor with a thud as she left his apartment and back to her's. "I got what we were looking for, and more. Just let me get to my work and I'll let you know what I find soon enough. Until then, don't bother me again." with that, Kieran shut the door behind her, leaving Dhani alone.





Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Kieran Valanetti Character Portrait: Dhani Batra Character Portrait: Luciana Morrison
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D h a n i Batra
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Paladinx|xoutfitx|x#b85c9e
xxxi think you know that you won't be away too long
xxxyou know that i'm not that strong
xxxjust one look and i can hear a bell ring
xxxone more look and i forget everything

xxx
It was a slow walk back to his apartment; Dhani wasn’t in much of a hurry to get home, he didn’t have anything to do for the rest of the evening besides eat some dinner and sort through his mail. Real exciting stuff, especially after the mission he’d just run. He decided to text his sister on the way home: his date had been fine. Yes, he was cute. No, you can’t have more details. Just because she’d married a boring guy didn’t mean she got to know every detail about his life
 Especially when it was a lie. He knew she was just excited, because Dhani couldn’t remember if he’d ever gone on an actual date. He’d used it as an excuse to go fight crime sometimes in high school.

Dhani felt at home before he even made it to the stairwell, and he was glad. He wanted to take a shower, rest, get some sleep. There was going to be a lot of work in the coming weeks, and he wanted to try to be ready for whatever that meant for him.

He considered stopping by Kieran’s to make sure she had something to eat, but he figured she would have already raided his fridge if she didn’t, so it was probably best to just leave her alone. She could get weird about people in her space, so he opted to head to his own apartment and leave her alone. She complained about Dhani being too protective and told him to stay out of her business, and then she complained when he gave her space because she could handle things herself, and he generally didn’t know what she wanted from him. Sometimes it was just better to avoid her.

He didn’t get the vibe that something was wrong until he turned on the lamp by the door. Red Witch was sitting on his kitchen counter, staring right at him.

She scared the shit out of him.

Dhani jumped backwards, knocking over the lamp, which came unplugged and rolled- almost comically- across the floor. Dhani may have been able to find some humor in the situation if he hadn’t been confused and scared. The lightswitch was across the room, which was why Dhani had the lamp by the door, but it still only took a few full strides to reach. Red Witch started talking right away, immediately being condescending. He ignored her question about what to call him, instead he asked, “What are you doing here?” She made a quip about stopping by for coffee, and Dhani rolled his eyes. “I prefer for my guests to use the door.” Then she broke his coffee pot. He sighed, deeply. This was ridiculous, he’d done nothing to deserve this treatment. “Just tell-”

Red Witch interrupted him, and told him why she’d come. It was because of Atticus. Dhani wanted to say there was nothing there, nothing to even be upset about. Then he remembered the promise to text Att that he’d made it home safely, and he knew that wasn’t something you asked a professional acquaintance to do. She threatened him, then, and that didn’t sit well with Dhani. He’d never enjoyed being threatened, and threats really never did much to deter him from something if he was determined to do it. Dhani wanted to ask her exactly what she meant, try to get her to tell him what she knew, and how, because he really wasn’t about to take this lying down.

Then Kieran walked in. She had the worst timing imaginable. Dhani frowned at her when she said he probably deserved whatever was coming. A part of him knew that Kieran was just trying to placate Red Witch, but that didn’t make it any less upsetting to have your friend say you deserved to have your home broken into and your life threatened after you just spent your time being shot at. Real great way to end his evening. When Red Witch threatened Kieran, he internally cursed her. Honestly, he could handle getting a little roughed up, he’d probably be fine. But Kieran? Even if she would be fine, Dhani wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he felt it was his fault she’d gotten hurt. Thanks to Kieran’s intrusion, he felt compelled to comply with Red Witch’s deal, and she’d known he would. Didn’t stop her from breaking his light and practically throwing a chair at him, though, which was both rude and unnecessary.

Kieran kept the glass from shattering on the two of them, which Dhani appreciated, even if it wasn’t fully necessary; he would have been fine. Then Kieran turned and started to berate him. Excuse me? He felt defensive right off the bat, “I didn’t do anything! She broke in here unprovoked and-” He stopped when Kieran said his name, being held in place with her powers wasn’t needed to get his attention, but she did it anyway. He listened to her words, and he felt heat rising across his face. Really? She was so focused on how this was his fault? Red Witch had broken into his apartment, threatened him, and Kieran was upset that she’d had to come “save” him? He would have been fine on his own.

When Kieran used her powers to fling him up to the ceiling, and then back to the floor, it just seemed to rub some salt into the wound. Dhani got the point: he was in this on his own. He stood up slowly as Kieran talked about her mission, all the amazing information she’d uncovered. My mission went terribly, he thought to himself, we found your file, though.Thanks for asking, you’re such a great friend. When Kieran left, he set his lamp back up, and plugged it in, mumbling, “I didn’t ask for your help.” When the light turned on, he looked around the apartment. He had some cleaning to do.

He just wanted to go to sleep.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Kieran Valanetti Character Portrait: Piper Young Character Portrait: Dhani Batra Character Portrait: Cerys Day Character Portrait: Atticus Hawkins Character Portrait: Jena Wainwright//Adrian Robles
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cerys day
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hex: #c7bbb4xxxxoutfit: herexxmask
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xxxoh don't you wonder when the light begins to fade?
xxxand the clock just makes the colors turn to grey
xxxforever younger growing older just the same
xxxall the memories that we make will never change

xxx
Cerys and Aaron’s mission, unsurprisingly, turned out to be a total bust. The guy stopped only to buy flowers, before heading home to his very normal house. But Cerys did, at least, get twenty bucks, a round of drinks, and a few stories about Malfyre out of Aaron for her troubles. She told Aaron the truth, that she was curious about this mysterious figure who was neither hero nor villain, but still seemed to side with the heroes from time to time. She respected that he couldn’t say that much. He needed to protect their identity, and honestly, she would have hoped that he’d do the same if Malfyre started asking about her.

News eventually filtered through that a number of suspects were going to be attending a masquerade ball in the city in a few week’s time. It was a private affair, but Malfyre had managed to get them all on the list. Under pseudonyms, of course. Cerys honestly thought that Persephone Rothschild was far from the worst, especially because it was believable. Some of the others, Malfyre had clearly had fun with their names and had toed the line of believability. But the ball presented one major issue for her. She couldn’t use her bow. She couldn’t conceivably smuggle in any weapons, which meant she’d have to improvise if she came down to it. But her siblings had trained her plenty in hand-to-hand, and she’d been paired up with Gemini. She knew it was probably only a matter of time before she ended up getting stuck with Red Witch, but she just prayed that day never came.

She’d agreed to meet Gemini in there, but couldn’t see them when she arrived. Apparently, they were coming as their male form, but she couldn’t see either of them. So she stuck to the crowds, searching for a semi-familiar face as she took a glass of the free champagne. It was more for appearance than anything else, she didn’t want to cloud her senses. She fished her phone out of her clutch and texted Aaron.

To: Aaron
you here yet? come quick before all the free champagne is gone :P


She felt someone barrel into her, almost knocking off her feet. Her balance was off in the heels, so it took her a millisecond longer than usual to recover. But there was strong hands grasping her as she recovered. She didn’t recognize this man. He was too short and the wrong build to be anyone she was working with, and so she flashed them a charming smile.

“Are you alright there, miss?” He asked as he released her.
“Yes, thank you. Just was distracted there for a moment,” she said with a light laugh.
“Easy to do. These receptions are always so busy, these things happen. Are you enjoying yourself?” He asked.
“Oh, yes, it’s been lovely so far.”
“Did you come all by yourself?” The question seemed out of the blue, and Cerys examined the man for a moment, trying to figure out his intentions.
“Oh no, my friends are coming too. I just live the nearest so I got here first, they’re going to be here any minute now,” she said, her light tone not giving away the suspicion bubbling in her stomach.
“Maybe I should keep an eye on you until they arrive. Just to make sure you don’t have any more mishaps,” he said, taking a step closer.
“I’m a grown woman, I can handle myself just fine.” Her polite facade was starting to drop. She wasn’t sure if this guy suspected something or if he was just being a creep, but she was starting to think he wouldn’t back down. This wasn’t what she wanted, and she knew it could potentially complicate things later. But punching him would definitely garner unwanted attention, and that would be worse.



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atticus hawkins
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hex: #88c878xxxxxoutfit: herexxxmask
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xxxthere is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin
xxxin the madness and soil of that sad earthly scene
xxxonly then am I human,
xxxonly then am I clean.

xxx
When Dhani didn’t text him the night after their mission, Atticus wasn’t quite sure how to process it. He was more worried than he was willing to admit, but didn’t want to dwell on it. But then he got a text the following morning, and it was off his mind. Even though he knew there was nothing normal about their relationship, texting Dhani felt like an oasis of normal in everything else. When his day to day life was too boring, it was something to keep him occupied. When things felt a tad overwhelming, it was something normal, just texting a guy he liked. But with Lucy determined to have everything ironed out for this ball, it was next to impossible to figure out a way to see him in person. Him and Lucy had been entrusted with trying to distract and occupy a number of people while some of the others went snooping around, and it required a significant amount of planning and
 well, rehearsal.

Getting ready for the masquerade ball or whatever it was took more effort than Att really wanted to put into it. It needed a new suit and a mask that wasn’t just the same one he wore as Icarus. He wasn’t going as Atticus Hawkins, though. He was going as William Alexander Goldberg-Jameson III, and that required a slightly different look. He didn’t think for a second anyone would recognize him anyway, but he wasn’t taking a chance. So his suit was perhaps a little more out there than usual, and his mask was elaborate. But as he got dressed that evening, making sure to look as polished as possible, he felt like he wasn’t totally looking at himself when he looked in the mirror. He looked like a different version of himself, and that was what he wanted. Into his inside pocket went his knives. He hadn’t gotten another gun yet. He kept putting it off, coming up with different reasons why knives were a better solution all round.

He’d tried to force visions about the ball on a number of different occasions, but every single time, he saw something entirely unrelated. Eventually he gave up, the emotional and physical toll just too much. He didn’t know if knowing or not knowing was better. If he had seen something, would he have even been able to change it?

Atticus and Lucy made their way to the hotel by limo, Lucy insisting that there was no way in hell they were just getting a taxi. They had an image to portray and they were going to stick to it. Att was on edge the whole time, but did enjoy the luxury of the limo and the attention they got as they stepped out was oddly wonderful. Delighted gasps and eyes that scanned them from head to toe and liked what they saw. Whispers about her dress, his suit, their masks. With their masks on, nobody could or would ever recognize them, and there was something thrilling about that. Att had slipped in his earpiece in the taxi, the mic already concealed in his mask.

“Icarus and Red Witch are on site,” he said, moments before they entered the main room together. He could feel eyes turn towards them as they entered, and he smiled. There was a power and a thrill in pretending to be someone else

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Kieran Valanetti Character Portrait: Dhani Batra Character Portrait: Cerys Day
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Malfyre // Anti-Hero // Attire & Mask // Hex: #575772

This is a black black ski mask song
So put all of your anger on
In the truly gruesome do we trust
I will always land on you like a sucker punch
Singing I am the worst, I am the worst nightmare


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The following days came and went, Kieran busily trying to figure out what else was encrypted in those harder to get into files. But more importantly, she was assigned getting their names on the list, or at least put names on it that would be assigned to them. At first, she figured she would mess around and put some nonsensical names their for them, but she knew it wouldn't be believable and would show that somehow had hacked into their list somehow. So, she decided to get everyone relatively believable names, making sure that both the heroes and villains got them and knew ahead of time so they could prepare. Sienna Delta May Hopkins, was the name she gave to herself, knowing full well that the others would be rather upset that she gave herself a more believable name than them, but it's what they were given and if they didn't like it, oh well. They could manage to deal with this for a few hours.

Kieran was uncertain what she wanted to do for the event. She wasn't much one for dresses but knew she had to at least play the part for a few hours. And after deciding on a corresponding dress and mask, and tried to help Dhani find a matching outfit. But he was hopeless as ever, and clearly decided to go with his own thing, and who was she to stop him? They'd manage to make it work, they always did. It was one of the things about them that always worked, no matter how much they may have caused shit towards each other, they always managed to pull things of in the end. This would be no different.

Kieran made last-minute preparations as she put on more make-up than she would have liked, and after making sure that she secured some on the spot weapons hidden on her person, she arrived at Dhani's, and the two shortly left after he was ready as well. As they exited their rather shabby apartment, a long, black stretch limo awaited them as their driver greeted them with smiles. "Shall we be making our way there, ma'am?" asked the rather young driver. Kieran gave him a curt smile and nod as the two of them got into the limo and the door shut behind them. Kieran knew full well what was on Dhani's mind, even if he didn't dare question it. Where did she get the money to afford this, and Should I be scared, were two all too common questions she received from him in the past always getting the same answer in reply. "Oh come on, Dhani. Don't act so surprised. If we're going to appear to be rich snobs, may as well play the part, right? Besides, you know better than to ask where I always get the money for this. Just don't, and you'll be fine." she said with a chuckle, looking back at him. "Don't worry, I only get the best that money can buy. This bad boy is soundproof, bulletproof, as well as fully tinted windows. You need to stop being so...uptight about everything and just relax." she said with a shrug as she pulled out a bottle of champagne and two glasses, "Want one?" she offered him a glass, but knew he would reject, but she figured she might as well be nice, so she simply shrugged and quickly downed the first one. Pouring a second one and downed it quickly as well. She always worked better if she had a little alcohol in her system, kept her from being entirely stressed. She made sure to pop in her earpiece, covering it up with her hair, as for the mic, the way her mask was made didn't allow for one to be integrated. She'd be able to hear the others, just not be able to communicate with them. At least not vocally anyway.

Soon enough the limo ride had come to a stop and the door was opened, letting some all too bright and artificial light as they were welcomed to the hotel. Kieran gave some fake smiles as the two of them walked and made their way into the hotel. "I'm gonna scout ahead, see what I can find and anything out of the ordinary. I'll meet up with you later." Kieran gave him a small smile and nod, and separated from him soon after. There were already a dozens of people, all dressed up to the nines, with masks. Making it hard to tell who was here and who wasn't. As well as who was who. Something that may make things a bit harder in retrospect. She knew the others would be here, but had no idea what they were wearing.

Kieran made her way into the main lobby of the hotel, where most of the guests were, making sure she blended in well enough with the others. Something she was never good at. Maybe breaking off from Dhani was a bad idea-Something from the corner of her eye garnered her attention. Some guy seemed to be talking up a woman in a long, grey dress with golden details, and a rather unique mask. She seemed clearly irritated by his presence. Kieran sighed and made her way over to the two. Giving a small curt smile, "Well there you are! I've been looking all over for you!" she said other enthusiastically. Wrapping an arm around Cerys. Looking back at the man for a moment she gave a fake laugh, "Sorry for being late, thanks for keeping my friend company in the meantime. Bye-Bye." she waved the man off, who seemed to give her a small glare and walked off.

Turning back to the girl she gave a smile, "Figured he was bothering you, thought I'd help. Hope your friends get here soon. If anyone else bothers you, feel free to just track me down." Kieran gave another smile and wink, and then turned away and walked off before the girl could properly thank her. She needed to focus on her mission, but as a waiter passed by, she scooped up one of the champagne glasses as she walked around to find something to occupy herself some time for now.





Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Kieran Valanetti Character Portrait: Dhani Batra Character Portrait: Atticus Hawkins Character Portrait: Luciana Morrison
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L U C I A N A 0 M O R R I S O N 00000000000000000000|0| A T T I C U S 0 H A W K I N S

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hexcode
#571616 0 | 0 #88c878

outfit
lucy 0 | 0 atticus

masks
lucy 0 | 0 atticus



As soon as everyone agreed they were good to go, Atticus took a deep breath. The band began to play a song, and Atticus nodded at Lucy, taking her hand and leading her to the dance floor. People’s eyes were drawn to them as they stepped out, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see someone slipping away down a corridor. But he couldn’t afford to be watching for the others now. He needed to concentrate on this because if he messed it up for them, Lucy would almost definitely kill him.

Luciana was taking a sip of champagne when she felt Atticus pull on her hand, quickly setting her drink down and walking behind him, heels clicking loudly on the floor as they headed towards the center of the room. As they parted through the crowd, Att held his hand out and Lucy came close to him. “Don’t think about it, just let it flow.” She said in a whisper to him. She didn;t doubt Atticus’ ability to lead this, probably one of the few people she actually trusted in the city, and she knew if he did mess this up, he wouldn’t exactly be sleeping easy.

He took a deep breath as they got into hold, nodding ever so slightly at Lucy’s instruction. They’d practiced enough, he had to trust himself and Lucy. And besides, he told himself, she had to do most of the work.

He’d never been much of a dancer, but this dance was one hell of a way to start. He had no idea how or where Lucy had found it, but it was striking enough to work. As he lifted Lucy into a spin, he could see that almost all eyes were on them, exactly what they’d wanted. Malfyre and Dhani would have big shoes to fill. It also made them stand out enough that Att and Lucy’s targets would surely want to talk to them at some point.

The final move was perhaps the most worrying, as he’d dropped her more than once in the apartment. But he held her strong, and applause burst out through the room. He pulled her back upright with a relieved smile.

Luciana smiled as Atticus took the first step and they began. This is what she was looking forward to for the whole night, could care less about their mission. But the attention of everyone and their eyes on her, giving her the rush of adrenaline she had been craving lately. There could be some worry about her or her partner messing up or skipping a step, but she knew that they wouldn’t, just had a feeling, regardless the number of times Atticus dropped her on her back

As they went through the steps, Luciana was scanning the crowd, keeping an eye out for their targets as well as seeing if any of the heroes were around, and her eyes quickly finding and setting on Paladin, he had a unique look so it wasn’t hard to find him. And the woman next to him in a long and revealing black dress had to be his partner, Malfyre.

When the final step came up, Luciana looked into Att’s eyes and smiled, knowing he wouldn’t drop her this time. And when he leaned her down she just continued smiling as he didn’t drop her on the ground. As Atticus pulled her back up, she locked eyes with Dhani, smirking with the round of applause that came from the crowd.

Lucy heard a question come from a woman in the crowd. As she walked back to her partner. “Oh, he's my fiancĂ©.” She said loudly, running her hand across Atticus’ face and pulling him in for a kiss, knowing the hero was watching.

The comment about him being Lucy’s fiancĂ© was nothing new. They’d agreed that was their cover story from the moment they’d started plotting for this event. But when she pulled him in for a kiss, he had to stop his immediate impulse to pull away. That could give them away. So instead he broke away after the shortest acceptable amount of time, giving her a look. They both knew what it meant, but it wouldn’t be overly harsh to any onlookers. “We’re going to talk about that later,” he said quietly. But now, they needed to target their respective individuals. It was as he turned to scan the crowd in search of his mark that he spotted Dhani. Dhani had to have seen that. But
 he had to know it was a distraction tactic, right? He made a mental note to try and talk to Dhani about it later. But they had a job to do first.

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Characters Present

Character Portrait: Kieran Valanetti Character Portrait: Dhani Batra
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K I E R A N VALLENETTI
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D H A N I BATRA
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Time went by rather slowly as Kieran made her way around the main lobby of the hotel, keeping her eyes constantly scanning over the room as she did so. Trying her best to not seem out of place or a figure of suspicion. She laid low and kept to one of the walls as she sipped the glass of champagne she had taken earlier. Kieran was lost in her thoughts until a figure crept up beside her, giving her a small smile. “Well hello. What’s a beautiful lady like you doing over here by yourself?” the man asked with a smirk, before taking a sip of his own drink. Kieran gave him a small smirk in return at his question, trying to not act like she had been zoning out until then. “Oh, I’m just uh, taking a small breather from the crowds for a moment. Sienna Hopkins, nice to meet you.” she extended her hand out, the man gave another coy smile as they exchanged pleasantries. “Aiden Charles Leon, pleasure to meet you, Ms. Hopkins.” the man introduced himself.

The two talked for what seemed like hours, exchanging simple talk and going into interests and what they both do for work, Kieran managed to bullshit her way through most of the conversation just fine, even with the egregious amount of alcohol he kept ordering for her, rarely taking any sips of his own. Which she thought was rather odd, but didn’t pay it much mind. The two continued to talk for a few more minutes until Kieran began to feel a little unwell, she gave Aiden a small smile as she excused herself, and began making her way through the crowd towards the bathroom. But stopped as she accidentally walked into someone, finally realizing just how much alcohol she had in such a short amount of time. “Oh shit, I am so so-” she started to apologize, until she realized who it was. “Oh hey, Dhani-Boy. What’re you doing over here?” Kieran said with a small smile and chuckle as she wrapped an arm around Dhani.

Dhani’s mind was buzzing in a million different directions, but he knew that he needed to find Kieran. For two reasons; leaving Kieran alone at a party with alcohol was very dangerous, and it was very likely past time he found her, and they had a distraction to run, and they needed to get to it. So typical, he complained to himself, she would leave me here alone. If something went wrong, I would be on my own. Hell, she is on her own if something goes wrong. Dhani wasn’t much for plans, but when there was a plan, not sticking to it felt like some sort of horrible offense. Kieran really should have known better than to go off on her own like this. And you should have known better than to get so emotionally involved with some guy you don’t even know.

Dhani was pretty certain he’d checked the whole room, and was sure he’d have to double back and check again when he spotted her. Had to be. That tall? The red hair? Kieran. Heading towards the bathroom. He didn’t really want to interrupt her business, but his desire to not lose track of her overcame that, and he hurried over, though he hadn’t planned on her running right into him. A few things stood out to him: she was drunk, she just used his real name, she was drunk, and she seemed to have completely forgotten why they were there. Or, her behavior would have him believe that, anyway. He sighed, but he didn’t move her arm from around him, she might need help with her balance, “What are you doing?” He was trying to keep his voice low, didn’t want to draw any attention to them, “How much have you been drinking? You know we’re not here for fun.”

Kieran chuckled as Dhani helped keep her up, if she didn’t know any better she would have toppled over. Looking at him as he asked what she was doing, and how much she had been drinking, as well as noting they weren’t there for fun. She raised a hand up and quickly put it down as if she was going to say something, but quickly lost track. “Well first off, Hi, second...I was just talking to what’s his face over there. Really nice guy, lots of alcohol.” Kieran said with a sigh before having to catch her breath, “Thirdly, I didn’t have that much, but I did have a few. Besides, I was helping to distract someone. What’s the harm in that?” Kieran questioned Dhani as she looked at him, not being able to fully contain herself as she chuckled slightly.

Dhani sighed. She was long gone, and the thought of carrying out their mission at all seemed pointless. “Did you forget why we’re here?” He whispered, harshly. He felt a bit like he was Kieran’s mother, having to swoop in to scold her because she was playing too rough. “I mean, what were you thinking? Were you even thinking? We have a job to do, and I’m not sure you’re in any state to do it.” Dhani was, frankly, embarrassed. He was going to have to admit that he’d lost track of his partner and gotten distracted long enough that she’d managed to get drunk. This was a disaster. All of Kieran’s recent behavior was weighing heavy on his mind, and he probably shouldn’t have, but he was taking this personally. “The things you do affect other people, you know.”

Kierna scoffed as he asked if she even remembered why they were there in the first place, "Of course I do, I-" she was cut off as Dhani continued to speak, a bit too rudely for her liking if she was being honest. She was going to let the first comment slide, but it was when he asked if she was even thinking, and he wasn't sure if she could still proceed with it, due to how drunk she appeared to be. Which, she had to admit, she was beginning to feel the effects, but in no way was she going to give him the satisfaction of knowing that. "Oh come off it, Dhani. I've done far more while far more drunk, you know this. I'm not entirely useless. Do I have to remind you as to how you were even allowed to get here anyway?" Kieran questioned, not exactly being the best of whispering. Especially now with the alcohol kicking in more.

Kieran looked back at him when he questioned if she was aware that her actions have consequences and affect others. "Well no shit, sherlock." Kieran quipped back. "What's your problem anyway? Better I stay out of trouble anyway, right? Isn't that what you always used to say? If I wasn't involved, you'd be actually able to get shit done without me slowing you down. So what do you really want from me, huh Dhani?"

He wished Kieran would just stop saying his name. It made him nervous, and he had no desire to get into any real trouble. Kieran questioned if he remembered why they’d been able to get into the party in the first place, and he rolled his eyes. Of course he remembered, but that didn’t mean she was suddenly faultless. She carried on talking, asking what his problem was. “What I want from you,” He said, slowly, almost as if talking to a child, “Is for you to take something seriously for once in your life.” He leaned in close to her, “The only thing I was ever concerned about was you getting hurt. You know that.” He shook his head, “You let your damn overinflated ego get in the way of everything. You can pull anything off, right? So you go out and get distracted by your phone, you take unnecessary risks, you get drunk and don’t even think about what kind of spot that puts the rest of us in.”

He’d been trying to stay calm, but he was having a bad day, and Kieran’s recent behavior was getting on his nerves, “You think that your abilities make you more valuable than everyone else. More capable. I get it, it’s easy to feel special, but you just manage to piss off everyone around you.” He took a step back from Kieran, crossing his arms as he did so, “So it’s time to stop. I’ll take you home.”

Kieran listened as he began to speak, deciding to be nice enough to at least hear him out for a moment. But the moment he started to tell her she needed to start taking things more seriously, is when she realized where things were going. He didn’t think she was taking this seriously, did he? Kieran simply blinked, trying to keep herself calm as he continued on, dear god did he like to lecture her. Treat her like a child, and here he was, doing just that.

Kieran felt her eyebrow begin to twitch when Dhani said she had an overinflated ego, and that she could pull everything off. That she must not have had to have a care in the world about anything but herself. That she always seemed so careless and seemed to not give a shit about anything. That Dhani claimed to only care about making sure she was never hurt or injured, and that he was tired of her always taking unnecessary risks that would affect everyone else. She scoffed softly at him as he took a step back, and said that he was taking her home. Kieran shook her head, looking down, and eventually back up as she bit her lip. Slowly feeling herself become sober, the angrier she got over time.

“You wanna know something? If anything, I’ve always felt insecure, and felt like I had to push myself to make you proud, Dhani. That I had to do more than I was capable, just to make you happy.” Kieran said with a chuckle, raising her hands over dramatically. Looking back up at Dhani she gave him a look he’d know all too well, even with the mask covering most of her face. “If you’re really tired of me and the way I do things, then how about I just leave? You won’t have to be bothered by someone like me anymore. All you have to do, is tell me to fuck off, and I won’t bother you anymore. Since that’s what you clearly want.” Kieran could feel the slow burn behind her eyes as she looked away from him finally, taking a step back, “I’ll just go. I’ll let you finish things up here since you know how to do things, won’t have someone messing things up for you.” Kieran said as she began to turn and walk away from Dhani.

Dhani almost had to fight the urge to roll his eyes; this was so much more dramatic than necessary. Kieran didn’t need to fight to make him proud of her; she was one of his best friends, he was always happy for her. He wasn’t tired of her, he just wanted her to stop treating this like some kind of game. All of this mattered, and the way she was handling it just didn’t sit well with him. As she turned to walk away, he reached out to grab her arm, “Stop it. You’re being ridiculous.” He knew that wasn’t going to help, but he didn’t want her going off on her own. Not in this state. Not with these people. “You know I love you, don’t make this into something it isn’t.” He sighed, “I’m just tired of being treated like garbage.” He was, of course, talking about the way she spied on him, blamed him for his apartment being broken into, throwing him up into the ceiling. In comparison, Kieran breaking into his apartment and eating all his food felt like a minor annoyance.

Kieran didn’t stop when Dhani first began to talk. But when he called it ridiculous is when she stopped and turned around, looking him dead in the eyes. Kieran quickly ripped her hand away before Dhani could get a proper hold of her, she wasn’t going back with him. Not after this. She knew where this was going, and knew what he was thinking: she was drunk and being her usual emotionally unstable self, and in the morning she’d be fine. And this whole thing would blow over. But it wasn’t like the other hundred times like this happened. She simply shook her head when he said that he loved her and that she didn’t need to make this into something it wasn’t. She felt it for the longest time, like something was slowly starting to tear them apart, and it slowly began to make sense.

“You’re tired of being treated like garbage?” Kieran scoffed. “You think the way that I’ve been treating you is like garbage?” Kieran asked, shaking her head once more. “I can show you what that’s like...But for now, I’m leaving, and don’t bother trying to follow me home.” Kieran demanded, holding Dhani in place with her powers for a moment as she gave him one more look over, breaking the hold right before she started looking around the room as she gave the small number of onlookers a small awkward chuckle, “My apologies
” she said softly, before finally starting to make her way through the crowd to leave. This really was a mistake coming here-no, trying to team up with them all, was one large mistake. She should have known that trying to make things work like this with other people was a big mistake, and tonight was proof enough. Working with others only ever proved to be a hassle, and Kieran was going to make sure she didn’t have it happen again.

Of course this was how it would fall apart. Dhani never asked Kieran to do anything but be careful, stay safe, check in every once and a while so he knows she hasn’t died. The one time he asks something of her, and she can’t handle it. He knew he’d said things he probably shouldn’t have- this wasn’t exactly the time or place to bring up Kieran’s recent behavior- but he meant it all. “Sure,” He called out after her, “Just run away when I need you!” Ultimately, he let her go. There was no point in arguing or trying to change her mind at this point, she’d decided what mattered, and apparently that was her pride. He was vaguely aware of the small group of people watching, and now that Kieran had left he was very aware of their presence. He smiled awkwardly before turning away, himself. She’d said his name so many times, she may as well have put a sign on his back that said “I’m a superhero, come kick my ass,” Though he was sure the others would call him dramatic, he wasn’t entirely sure it was misplaced.

The million ways this could make things go wrong were suddenly flooding through Dhani’s head; this could turn out very badly, very quickly. As he walked away, he tried to keep an eye out for anywhere less congested with people. He pulled out his phone and looked down, tilting his head slightly so his microphone could pick up his voice, ”Can’t complete the distraction as planned. Sorry.”

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Dhani Batra Character Portrait: Atticus Hawkins Character Portrait: Luciana Morrison
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L U C I A N A 0 M O R R I S O N 000000000000000000|0| A T T I C U S 0 H A W K I N S

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#571616 0 | 0 #88c878

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lucy 0 | 0 atticus

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lucy 0 | 0 atticus



Att had to resist the temptation to storm across the room, knowing that would draw attention to them. That was, until the very guy Lucy was supposed to be distracting almost walked into Atticus, his phone pressed to his ear. It was too late to intervene. He made his way across the room, his eyes fixed on Lucy. She’d jeopardised the entire mission just to talk to some guy that looked like he had a sum total of about three brain cells, and two of them were taken up with worrying about his hair. They’d probably only avoided disaster thanks to sheet dumb luck. He didn’t even try to fake pleasantness as he reached them. “We need to talk. Now,” he ordered, not even acknowledging the other guy. He tried to say something, but Att just shot him a glare. “Don’t you have some mirror to fix your hair in?” He snapped. The guy apparently got the message and sauntered off, shooting a wink at Lucy. Att stormed off in the other direction to a quiet hallway where they wouldn’t be overheard. “What the fuck do you think you’re playing at?” He snapped.

Luciana was batting her eyes through the masquerade mask and giggling when she noticed Atticus walk up, but before she could say anything he quickly demanded to talk to her. Colton quickly spoke up. “Is there an issue here?” But Lucy noticed the glare from Atticus and sighed as he said a rude remark. “Hey!” Lucy tried to speak up but Att was already pulling her away, she gave Colton a last little smile and wave before he was out of sight and the two villains were down the hallway. He quickly spoke to her, with a little bit of hostility in his voice. “I’m not playing at anything. Do you know who that was? Colton Underwood.” Lucy said as she crossed her arms and stared at Att.

Att just rolled his eyes as Lucy said who it was. He knew the name, of course he did. He’d spent enough time talking shit about the show just out of her reach to not know who it was. “I don’t give a shit, Lucy. If he’s here, that means he could very well want people like us dead. And what I do give a shit about is that you were too busy fluttering your eyelashes at him instead of doing what you were supposed to do. I just ran into the guy you were supposed to distract, and he had very obviously not been distracted. Care to explain yourself? he asked.

As she listened, Luciana did remember she was supposed to distract a certain individual and she did start to feel bad for getting side tracked herself, but she didn’t need Att to come at her so aggressively, which she didn’t appreciate. “Okay Att. First off, he’s here because the producers from last season wanted him here, to get some funding for the show.” She said, taking a step closer to Att. “I’m sorry for getting side tracked and trying to take some time to relax, but atleast I’m not out here fucking heroes in my spare time.” Lucy said with venom behind her words, poking her finger into his chest. “Now if you’re done being a little bitch about things
” She said turning back, but Atticus stopped her, grabbing her wrist.

Att just raised his eyebrows as Lucy managed to drag Dhani into it, rolling his eyes a little. She tried storming away, but he grabbed her wrist. “We’re not done here, Lucy. You talk so much shit about me and Dhani but we haven’t once compromised the mission. First you kissed me, which was something we hadn’t discussed, and which was totally unnecessary. And before you say it was just trying to sell our story, we both know that’s bullshit. A kiss on the cheek would have worked just as well. I know you did that to try and spite Dhani. And you need to grow the hell up and get over that,” he snapped.

Luciana jerked her hand free of Atticus. “Never once compromised a mission? I recall you freezing up when you saw his face at the warehouse. And yeah I kissed you to spite him. I’m looking out for you Att. And what does it matter to you about him?” She asked. “He’s been ignoring you, time to just forget about him. Get your head back on what matters and out of dumb wild fantasies.” Lucy rolled her eyes. Since she threatened Dhani they should have been talking less.

Att just rolled his eyes as Lucy brought up how he had frozen on seeing Dhani in the warehouse. “That’s not the same and you know it. I’ve stayed professional this whole damn time.” He had a response on his lips as Lucy asked him why it mattered, when she said something about Dhani ignoring him. He frowned. “No
 no, he hasn’t. Why would you think he’s been ignoring me? It’s not like I’ve said or done anything to give that impression,” He asked. If anything, he’d been afraid that Lucy had somehow known that they’d been in contact, that she’d picked up on it from his demeanour. “And don’t you dare try and bullshit me, we both know I’ll see right through it and I’ll find out one way or the other.”

Luciana turned away a bit from Atticus when he asked about why she would think that Dhani would be ignoring him. She was about to come up with a lie or change the subject, but Att insisted she would know. “Fine. I paid him a little visit after my mission with Malfyre, also had a bit of a girl over with two rats.” Lucy said as she turned back to him. “But it’s good to know he’s such as big of a fucking dumbass as you are Atticus.” She shoved him back a bit. “Maybe I should go back and pay your boy toy another visit. Rough him up this time so he gets the message.” She said with a smirk across her face.

Att honestly hadn’t been sure what he’d been expecting from Lucy, but somehow he was at once angry, yet not surprised. The comment about him being a dumbass passed him by as she threatened to go back and rough him up. “I swear to god, Lucy, if you as much as touch a hair on his head you’ll be finding somewhere else to live,” he swore. “Enough of your petty, over dramatic, stupid bullshit about the heroes. Stop dragging me into it. I never asked to be a villain. Everyone just saw me work with them once or twice and decided that’s what I was. I got dragged into this mess. So I’ll sleep with whoever the hell I want, I’ll text whoever the hell I want, and nothing gives you the right to tell me what I should do. So mind your own goddamn business and stop dragging me into your petty little grudges, because I don’t want to be involved.”


What you gonna do? Luciana thought as Atticus said an empty threat to her, though what he said next just made her laugh a little bit before regaining her composure. “You think we have a choice to be villains Att? I didn’t choose to be a villain. You know this, you know I went to the heroes when I was younger and they made the choice for me to be a villain. I had to become a villain or die a weakling.” Luciana said, anger starting to build up in her. If it was any other person besides Atticus arguing with her, she would’ve acted by now, plus she couldn’t really walk around the gala with blood on her and not be suspicious.

Att just scowled in frustration as Lucy recounted how she didn’t have a choice on becoming a villain. “This isn’t about you, Lucy. I know you didn’t have a choice. But you didn’t leave me with much of one either. And this is my life. And instead of being happy for me, or acknowledge that it’s my goddamn choice who I sleep with, you’ve been a selfish bitch about it and have tried to ruin my life just because you have a grudge against him because of what some people did years and years ago.” Somewhere, out in the main ballroom, he could hear what sounded like people yelling, presumably Dhani and Malfyre’s distraction. At least something was going to plan.

While Atticus talked, Luciana was getting more and more frustrated, she was about to interrupt and say that talking about this now wasn’t worth it and they needed to head back to the ballroom, but a word out of his mouth ticked her off. Bitch. Everything Att said after calling her a bitch she didn’t hear, she just stared into his eyes, as she was now at her peak. Lucy saw his mouth stop moving and blinked a couple times, and then slapped him across the face, not caring about hitting her hand on his mask. “Bitch? I’ll showing you a fucking bitch. Fuck you Atticus. Seriously. Fuck. You. I’ve looked out for you, protected you, while other villains wanted to either toss you aside or torture you. But I’m the bitch? Fine. I’ll leave you alone, invite your little hero lover to the apartment anytime you want.” She shouted towards him and quickly walked away.

Lucy didn’t stop as she came into the main room, but just continued out the door, bumping into a few patrons on the way out. She was furious but also trying to hold back tears as she got outside. Luciana quickly found the limo driver parked off to the side and climbed in, but only to change into spare clothes she brought in case. The driver asked her if she was ready to leave, but she just ignored him as she changed and handed him his payment for the night, not expecting to come back. After she got changed she exited the limo and just started walking down the street, unsure of where she was going. As she got far enough away she ripped off her mask and tossed it into an alley way as she kept walking.

It seemed that Lucy had only heard one word of what he’d said, and that single word resulted in a slap that left his face stinging and nearly knocked his mask off. She screamed at him, talking about how she’d protected him, as if this whole thing hadn’t been entirely all her suggestion. He hadn’t asked for any of this. She stormed off and Att sighed, pulling his mask off and running his hands down his face. He could have stormed out himself then, but he needed to keep his calm. Anger was dangerous, and anger could put them in danger. One person storming out was acceptable. Multiple people could raise questions. He took a deep breath and fixed his mask, regaining his composure. He’d just stepped back out into the ballroom when Dhani’s voice appeared in his earpiece. The curt briefing made Att tense up, afraid something had gone horribly wrong. He instinctively found himself scanning the room, searching for him. His eyes found him and the overwhelming emotion was just relief that he was okay. He had to force himself to look away, remembering that he still had a job to do.

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Characters Present

Character Portrait: Kieran Valanetti Character Portrait: Piper Young Character Portrait: Dhani Batra Character Portrait: Aaron Langdan
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Aaron stayed along the wall as he exchanged small talk with Piper, which was more or less him just bringing up random things or an awkward silence filled the gap between the two. Regardless, they had to keep their eye on things, and if anything seemed out of the ordinary they'd go into action. Everything was already starting to bore him, but his eyebrow raised when a commotion started in the middle of the room. It was subtle but, it garnered more than a few eyes from the onlookers. That was clearly Paladin and Malfyre, it had to be. No one was that tall with as bright red hair as Kieran, and no man would wear such an out there suit. So that had to be Dhani, Aaron gauged. But the more as he watched, his stomach began to drop. This wasn't a distraction, at least not what they had planned. From what he could tell, Kieran was drunk, he knew her all too well to know and Dhani was trying to defuse the situation. poor guy. Aaron cocked his head to the side as he caught the last bit of what Piper asked him. Just nodding his head, "Yeah, yeah. Sure. Sounds great." he mumbled, watching as she watched off soon after, he didn't know what to do. He wanted to go after Dhani and talk to him, gauge the situation from a sober mind before he did anything, but the other half of him wanted to go after Kieran and stop her from leaving and possibly walking into danger.

Before he realized it, Aaron found himself automatically going after Kieran. She needed someone, even if she denied any and all help. She'd be needing someone to be there for her. Aaron came up from behind her, gently placing a hand on her shoulder, "Hey hey now, where are you going?" he playfully called after her. It didn't take much to feel the energy coming off of Kieran as she turned to look at him, he didn't even have to see the expression on her way to know that she wasn't happy to see him. "What do you want? Can't you assholes just leave me alone?" Kieran whined. Aaron shook his head as he placed his hands on both of her arms, "Hey now, I don't know what that was and I am not getting in the middle of that shit, but c'mon. You know me. Just talk to me, okay?" he tried reassuring her. Kieran simply shook her head, "There's nothing to talk about, okay? I just want to go home, coming here was a mistake." Kieran said as she tried to push Aaron off of her in an attempt to leave.

"I've known you longer than anyone else, remember? I know when you're upset and when someone upsets you, you've always come and talked to me. But not recently. Why? You know I'm not going to judge you, remember that?" Aaron pleaded, grabbing out for her hand again. "I really just want to be left the fuck alone tonight, okay? Is that so much to ask? I fucked up, as always. I just need to go and clear my head. Okay?" she demanded. Aaron shook his head, "I'm never leaving you alone, so can you just talk to me, please? That's all I'm asking. Jut talk to me, like when we were kids. Please I-" Aaron was cut off as he could feel a small pain forming in his stomach, looking up at Kieran as he could see the look in her eye. It was a look whenever she concentrated on a certain part of someone. "What the fuck, are you really doing this?" Aaron coughed as a small drop of blood dripped from his nose. "Just leave me alone, or I will make it much worse. Bye, Aaron..." Kieran said softly before she turned and left, making her way for the door. Aaron watched as she disappeared into the crowd of people, cursing under his breath. "She's gone, Malfyre left. Just let me know what I can do to help." he spoke softly into the mic and made his way to the bathroom, he'd need to clean the blood off of his hands. This really was a mess after all.



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Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Piper Young Character Portrait: Dhani Batra Character Portrait: Cerys Day Character Portrait: Atticus Hawkins Character Portrait: Jena Wainwright//Adrian Robles Character Portrait: Aaron Langdan
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hex: #c7bbb4xxxxoutfit: herexxmask
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xxxoh don't you wonder when the light begins to fade?
xxxand the clock just makes the colors turn to grey
xxxforever younger growing older just the same
xxxall the memories that we make will never change

xxx
Cerys scanned the room as she stepped back into the main ballroom, searching for a familiar face to go talk to. Dhani was perhaps the easiest to spot. She only knew a handful of people who could wear a suit like that and pull it off, so when combined with his height, he was easy to pick out. He seemed to be arguing with somebody, however, so she figured it was probably best to just stay away from that. She stayed moving around the crowd, eager not to appear suspicious, watching the whole time to see if she was needed anywhere.

She jumped a little as Dhani’s voice spoke in her earpiece, saying that they hadn’t been successful. She frowned, and scanned the room to see if anything had happened. There seemed to be a lot more security about, but no obvious disturbance. When she heard somebody calling her by her alias, she feared the worst. When she turned around to look, she wasn’t sure if she was relieved or not to see another partygoer. But she didn’t recognise the woman, even as she closed in. But the heat behind the slap, more heat than there should have been, was the first clue, and her threat was the second. Cerys just stared as the woman walked away, trying to gather herself. People were staring. So she shrugged and laughed lightly. “Wait until she finds out about her boyfriend’s other mistresses,” she said, sipping lightly on her champagne as she walked away. People thrived on gossip, and it might be enough to distract some of them.

Intending on leaving, she slipped out into the hall as Aaron came on the mic to say Malfyre had left. Clearly something had happened with her and Dhani’s distraction then. She’d have to get the details from someone later. She jumped a little as she noticed someone else in the hall, but she recognised the figure. “Aaron? Jesus Christ, you would not believe the night I’ve had-” she started, but stopped herself as she spotted the blood on his hands. “Shit, by the looks of it, you’ve had a worse one. Are you okay?” She asked.






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atticus hawkins
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hex: #88c878xxxxxoutfit: herexxxmask
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xxxthere is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin
xxxin the madness and soil of that sad earthly scene
xxxonly then am I human,
xxxonly then am I clean.

xxx
He’d always been good at faking comfort in a party, and this was nothing new. This was just another one of his parents’ mixers, an excuse for them to talk business and entertain and show off their power. If anything, this was easier, because here, he just had to blend in, not be the weapon he was supposed to be. He just needed to wait until it was appropriate to leave, and then do so without being noticed.

He almost jumped out of his skin when he felt a hand on his arm, but sighed when it was just Aboleth. He sighed as she asked what was wrong, just shaking his head. “One of the guys from The Bachelor is here, and
 Lucy got talking to him when she was supposed to be distracting her mark, and her mark was free to roam around. I yelled at her about that and
 we had a bit of an argument, I might have called her a bitch, and she stormed out. It’s fine, she probably just needs a couple of hours to calm down.” He said, with a shrug, never quite meeting Piper’s eyes. Part of it was guilt, part of it was just a habit from knowing what her ability entailed. While glancing away, he could see more and more security starting to appear around the room, clearly trying and failing to blend in. Security never could blend in right, no matter how much they tried. They were like cops, they stood out if you knew how to look for them.

“Listen, I think we need to get out of here,” he said. “Security seems to have doubled, and I’m guessing they know something is up. We should leave before they start asking questions.” He eyed up the nearest guard as he spoke. He knew that they’d be looking for anyone who stood out, and he unfortunately fit that brief. “Can
 can you check in with Lucy? She’s not going to talk to me and I need to know if I need to avoid the apartment or not,” he joked, but it sounded as forced as it felt. “Thanks.”

He turned and headed for the exit. He fully intended on just leaving, but BludWynd’s voice in his earpiece made him slow. Malfyre had left. Exactly how badly had things gone? He didn’t want to linger any longer, but he found his gaze drawn towards Dhani again. He pulled out his phone and sent a text.

To: Dhani
Are you okay?

And then, after a moment;

I’m outside. Can we talk?

Once he got outside, he pulled off his mask and his jacket, knowing the colour of his suit and the mask were too identifying if anyone started asking questions. Their limo was still there, the driver just playing a game on his phone. Lucy hadn’t taken the limo home then, and Att almost instinctively raised an eyebrow. He was surprised that she hadn’t taken it if only to force him to walk or get a taxi home.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Dhani Batra Character Portrait: Atticus Hawkins
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000D H A N I 0 B A T R A 00000000000000000000000000| A T T I C U S 0 H A W K I N S

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hexcode
#b85c9e 0 | 0 #88c878

outfit
dhani 0 | 0 atticus

mask
dhani 0 | 0 atticus



Dhani never minded parties, but this wasn’t the sort of party he was accustomed to. Add the guilt of having yelled at Kieran and ruined their entire purpose of being there, the general awkwardness of being all by yourself in the middle of a big fancy party, and the embarrassment of
 Whatever was going on with Atticus; he honestly just wanted to go home. Aaron’s voice in his ear, saying Kieran had left, only made it worse. He felt responsible for the way things had happened. Maybe he could have worked harder on staying with Kieran, or found her sooner, or been gentler.

Then he got the text. Initially, he decided on just ignoring the text. He felt justified in that, after what he’d seen and been through. He noticed security popping up around the room, too. Dhani wondered if a day would come when an influx of security guards didn’t make him feel nervous. Probably not. Another text, also from Atticus. A part of him really didn’t want to talk to Att. He needed to leave, that much was true, but he needed to walk out the door and head straight home. There was no explanation that would make all of this okay, so Dhani didn’t see much of a point in letting Att try.

And yet, there was another part of Dhani that started looking for Att the moment he stepped outside. He wanted Atticus to explain that it was nothing, just a big misunderstanding. He was feeling guilty, upset, angry. He just wanted something about the night to be okay. So he found Att, walked over; he wasn’t sure what to say, but he was pretty sure he should say something. In the end, all he said was, “Hey.”

Att spotted Dhani the minute he stepped outside the building, but he hung back, wanting to talk somewhat out of sight. There was a moment when he thought Dhani was just going to keep walking, just ignore him, a moment that troubled Atticus more than he wanted to admit. He didn’t know why Dhani had gotten under his skin in the way he had.

But then Dhani turned and made his way over to Att, and he could breathe a sigh of relief. “Hey,” he said. “You look great.” The compliment slipped out easily, even though he hadn’t really intended on saying it. “So
 Red Witch told me about her little visit to your apartment. I’m so sorry about that, I
 genuinely have no idea how she found out and she had absolutely no right to do it,” he said. “She
 she didn’t hurt you or anything, did she?”

Dhani smiled at the compliment, and nodded in lieu of thanks. Normally, it would have been great to hear, but he wasn’t so sure he really wanted to hear it. Then Atticus brought up Red Witch breaking into his apartment. Dhani shook his head, “No. Nobody was hurt. She just broke my coffee pot, threatened my neighbor. Standard stuff.” Dhani crossed his arms over his chest, closing himself off. “Red Witch doesn’t scare me, I’m pretty used to being threatened. Besides, I think I understand it now.”

Att wasn’t even surprised to hear that Lucy had caused a little destruction in the course of her visit, but was at least relieved to hear nobody had been hurt. Att just raised an eyebrow as Dhani said he wasn’t scared of her. He was one of the very few people who weren’t, and Att wouldn’t have blamed him. But then again, Dhani was a hero. People like Lucy were probably nothing new, and besides, increased healing didn’t exactly play well with blood manipulation.

There was a moment when Att wasn’t sure why Dhani said he understood it. But of course, they’d appeared the perfect couple all evening, and she’d even kissed him. Why wouldn’t anyone believe them? He just sighed, shaking his head.

“Dhani, that was an act. I swear. She went too far, it was supposed to just be the dance and if anyone asked, we were engaged. That was all, that was all I agreed to. There’s nothing going on. We’re just friends.”

He wanted to just completely believe Atticus; it would have been really easy. Truth or not, it didn’t matter, because it was what he wanted to hear. And, obviously, it made perfect sense. But Dhani had had enough negative life experiences to be a little wary. Still, he nodded. “Okay,” He didn’t sound the most convinced, but Dhani knew that Atticus hadn’t owed him any explanations or anything in the first place.

Dhani sighed, relaxing his shoulders as he did. He didn’t realize how tense he’d been until then. “The dance really was impressive.” They had clearly put a lot of work into it. It had at least gone better than Dhani’s distraction. But Att had said that Red Witch took it too far. Dhani looked over Atticus for a moment, carefully considering that. “You okay?” He paused, then quickly added, “These things are a lot, even without someone springing something new and changing up your plans.”

The awkwardness of the moment hung between them, even as Dhani nodded. God, why couldn’t things just be straightforward for once? But Dhani’s compliment about the dance managed to earn a smile from Att, even despite that. “Thanks. You probably don’t want to know about the amount of times I dropped her,” he said, laughing a little.

He just shrugged as Dhani asked if he was okay. “I
 just been one of those nights, I guess. The kiss was
 weird,” he said, managing a half smile. “God, the mission was the easy part. I can handle stuff like that in my sleep, I’ve been doing it all my life. But... things didn’t exactly go to plan, and the only reason things didn’t end up worse is because we got lucky. And having what should be two entirely separate parts of your life come smashing into each other, it’s just
 messy.” He shook his head a little. “Sorry, I just
 Yeah, I’m fine.” It felt like a lie, even though it was mostly true. He felt like he was still “on duty” and that meant showing as few weaknesses as possible. And if you showed weakness, you covered it up as soon as you could.

Dhani would be lying if he said the mental image of Atticus dropping Red Witch didn’t make him smile. She’d broken his window, and generally made his life more difficult than it had to be, so there was a part of him that did want to hear about Att dropping her.

He listened intently as Atticus spoke, briefly recapping the night and how it affected him. Dhani understood it, or, some of it. He felt his heart break a little when Att said he’d been doing things like this all his life. Dhani had to wonder what kind of life he’d lived for that to be his experience. He wasn’t about to ask, but it was certainly going to be on his mind. He shook his head when Atticus apologised, “No, I understand.” He didn’t think the night had gone as planned for anyone. A part of Dhani wanted to reassure Atticus that it was okay; it was okay to make mistakes, or be vulnerable. Whatever he needed to hear. But Dhani didn’t know what Atticus needed, and it didn’t seem like the right time, anyway.

He glanced over his shoulder, almost as if he were expecting someone. He felt so awkward, he almost wished that someone had been there. “I’m pretty conspicuous,” As far as excuses went, it wasn’t the best one, but it was true, “Probably shouldn’t hang around too long.”

The awkwardness was still lingering, practically tangible in the air between them. It felt so wrong, but Att didn’t know what he could do about it. Maybe things were just going to be like this now. It was probably never going to work anyway. They’d just been naive.

He nodded as Dhani said he was a bit conspicuous. “Yeah, we should
 probably get going,” he said. “Do you need a ride home?” He asked. “Red Witch left me with the limo so may as well get my money’s worth out of it.”

Dhani hadn’t even checked to see if Kieran had left him stranded (and even if she had, it wasn’t as if he was without options), but something about Atticus offering him a ride home had Dhani feeling
 something. Excited, maybe. He should say no, though. He could get home on his own, and Att was probably just offering to be nice. “I, uh,”

But as he looked at Atticus, Dhani realized that he really would like nothing more, which just made things that much more complicated. “Thank you,” He offered a soft smile, “But you don’t have to go out of your way or anything. Very gentlemanly of you, though.” The last thing Dhani wanted was to be in the way, or be inconvenient. He’d made enough of a mess that evening with his fight with Kieran.

God, that night in the bar, Att was pretty sure neither of them had envisaged them ending up like this, the silence feeling weighted with
 what? The history between them? Everything that had just happened? What they (or, at least, Att) wanted, but knew was a bad decision? Part of him almost regretted offering now, maybe things would have been more straightforward then.

Dhani’s remark about the offer being gentlemanly made Att smile, and he shrugged a little. “Well, you know me, the perfect image of a gentleman,” he joked. “And I’m pretty sure your place is en route anyway. But there’s no pressure, if you’d rather get a taxi, that’s totally fine, I won’t be offended,” he said with a slight laugh. “Just doing the gentlemanly thing.”

As Att spoke, Dhani couldn’t help but wonder what he was doing. He liked Att, a lot more than he ever expected to. He was so used to ending things before they really started, but here he was with a guy that knew everything that he was, could understand how demanding his life really was. “You know,” He paused mid-sentence; Att really had him rethinking everything he thought he knew. Of course, he’d always logically known that villains were people, but it was so easy to file them away, count them off, forget that they, too, had a different life under the mask. Maybe it was a little hypocritical, but it wasn’t anything he’d spent any length of time thinking about until he saw Atticus in that warehouse.

But what was he supposed to say? He’d always told himself that when he found someone that could understand what he did, that he wouldn’t let him slip through his fingers. Maybe he said that because he’d thought it would never happen. Or that the guy would be a hero, or a reporter
 or something.

“It’s been a shitty night. I’d love for something to just feel normal,” Dhani shrugged, “Ish.” He smiled at Att, “I’d like a ride, yes.” There were a lot of things he’d like from Att.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Kieran Valanetti Character Portrait: Piper Young Character Portrait: Dhani Batra Character Portrait: Cerys Day Character Portrait: Atticus Hawkins Character Portrait: Jena Wainwright//Adrian Robles
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atticus hawkins
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outfit | #88c878

Somebody had once asked him how he could tell the difference between a vision and a dream. Usually, it was the sheer clarity. It felt like he was there. Sometimes it was like he was the one dying. Sometimes he was the one responsible. He never knew which was better. Sometimes, he could feel the pain if he was the one dying. But the ones where he was responsible were a haunting echo of his old life, and left him questioning if he was actually going to be the one responsible. But this time round, he knew exactly which position he would have preferred to be in. Because as bad as it was to experience the pain and trauma of being killed
 it couldn’t be worse than seeing his hand pulling the trigger of the gun that was against Lucy’s head.

He bolted upright, the dream still lingering in his head, far, far too vivid to be anything other than a vision. Nausea rose in him as he tried to catch his breath, still feeling like there was someone sitting on his chest. His head was spinning from the sudden movement, but he fought back against his body’s protests to reach over and grab his phone, struggling to read the texts at first. There was a moment of relief when he saw the texts from Piper, but as he read the texts and the screenshots within, the nausea and panic became almost overwhelming. But when he went to actually get to his feet, his head spun so much that he felt like his legs wouldn’t support him. He didn’t have time for this, he needed to do something now. He just sank back onto the bed and squinted at his phone, looking for the number. It rang, which settled his anxiety a little, but she didn’t answer. Of course she didn’t, why would she? She was mad at him, that was all.

“Lucy, if you get this, call me, it’s urgent.” He doubted she’d check her voicemail if she thought it was from him though, so he sent a text as well.

To: Lucy
Call me, it’s urgent.


Was he too late? The rational part of him told him that no, he was pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to happen for another few days at least, but he also knew that it was always a vague timeframe anyway. He didn’t have time to hesitate, didn’t have time to wait around. He needed to tell someone, he needed to do something before it was too late.

He didn’t know what made him pick that number first of all. Maybe he thought that Dhani could help the most, maybe he knew that Dhani could probably contact the rest of the heroes, or maybe it was the same goddamn reason he’d offered him a ride home the night before.

He hesitated for a minute, wanting to call him. He wanted to hear a friendly voice, wanted to hear someone tell him he would be okay. But another wave of nausea hit him and he was pretty sure that he wasn’t capable of holding a coherent conversation. Texting was just about as much as he could manage.

To: Dhani
I need your help- rw in trouble and only gonna get worse if I don’t do something


He wanted to deal with this like they always had, as few people as possible, but if they were as short on time as he thought, they couldn’t afford that. Lucy couldn’t afford that.

To: Dhani
can you contact the others? things are real bad and we need to meet asap


He didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what he should do, and hated how scared and useless he felt. He hadn’t felt like this in years, it hadn’t been this personal in years. It wasn’t like he wasn’t freaked out by every vision he had, but this was just
 a whole other level. He had to do something and had to do it soon, and that was just making it worse. And sitting here feeling sorry for himself wasn’t good enough. He managed to get to his feet and get dressed, making his way out to the kitchen to make coffee, watching his phone the whole time. He knew he needed to text Piper as well, get her help on it, but something in him told him to wait until he’d heard from Dhani.