Chapter Text
Chapter 1
As the older, pot-bellied man screamed and waved a handgun at her face, Wednesday Addams wondered just how her day had been thrown so thoroughly off track. She had known life in the cities would be different, but she hadn't expected getting a simple bank account set up would be such an intensive process, and she certainly hadn't expected that process to be disrupted by a group of four ski-mask-covered men barging into the bank waving guns. Two of them seemed calm and collected and had already corralled and gotten the majority of the staff and customers on the ground, but the other two seemed a little more on edge. One was staying near the door, his shaking hands aiming a shotgun at the unconscious guard, while the other—
"I said get on the fucking ground, bitch," screamed the man in front of her, and Wednesday couldn't help but notice the grease stains spotted over his too-tight shirt. "Did you not hear me? Did you not see the gun? I will blow your fucking brains out, and don't think I won't!"
"I suspect your compatriots would frown on killing a civilian, all things considered," she reasoned, her voice even and emotionless even as she slowly dropped to her knees, hands clasped in her lap, "You are working with limited time as it is. Assuming you managed to stop the staff from hitting the silent alarm, which is doubtful considering how well they train for exactly this situation, you still have a limited time before one of the city Sensors picks up on this. I would suggest focusing on securing as much money as possible in the next three minutes, then leaving the premises. If you lose yourself in the city well enough, you might even get away with it."
"Wha—?" He grumbled intelligently before he decided that something Wednesday said had been an insult, snarling in her face. The hand holding the gun lashed out, crunching into her cheekbone with enough impact that it reminded her of her brother for a moment as it sent Wednesday reeling to the floor. She felt the inside of her cheek split against her lip, tasted the rush of metal as her mouth filled with blood, and quashed the desire to murder the man in ways so excruciating that his next reincarnation would fear every woman with dark hair. "Stay down and shut up, stupid brat."
Wednesday fought back a sigh as the man lumbered away, waving his weapon around to add to the intimidation of his body odor. The gun itself was a heavy, nickel-plated revolver, and that alone was enough to fill Wednesday with despair. A revolver, a shotgun that looked like it had been sawed off with a hacksaw just before they had decided to do this particular bout of crime, and a pair of low-caliber sub-machine guns were the grand total of the arsenal that these four thugs had brought with them. When the two leaders had seemed so confident in their movements, either particularly good actors or consummate professionals, she assumed they would have some form of mad-scientist tech, perhaps a plasma rifle or a shielding module, yet it seemed they were still relying on mundane technology.
Wednesday watched and waited as the bank robbers began to fill duffel bags full of credit chits. The little metal disks were in a variety of colors to denote their value, but the criminals seemed to be just dumping them into the bags as fast as they could, rather than aiming for boxes of specific denominations. Seeing the hurried motions and constant over-the-shoulder looks even the two with the sub-machine guns were making, Wednesday was pretty sure they were just acting the part at first, and let out a frustrated sigh. She really hadn't wanted to get involved today, but whoever the city had as this district's Sensor was clearly sleeping on the job. Her mother would have done a far better job and sensed the crime before it happened.
"Amateurs," Wednesday muttered, reaching into the black scarf around her neck to pull up the mask stored inside. She had hoped to have a slightly more interesting first stretch of her power than a mundane bank robbery, but her father had always said you had to start somewhere. His advice had been for building death rays and robots, but she felt it still applied to the rest of the world, too. She reached out with that part of her that had always been there, the part she didn't have a name for, and she felt the shadows in the room grow darker, thicker, beginning to coalesce into something more usable for her purposes than a simple patch of shade—
And then the bank door crashed open for the second time, and Wednesday couldn't stifle the sigh that erupted as a man wearing a black domino mask and bright-green cape flew into the center of the bank.
She just knew it was going to be a long day.
Enid Sinclair bounced on her toes as she stared into the bathroom mirror, fitting the bright pink domino mask over her eyes. It wasn't really her style, a little too classic for her tastes, though the color was at least bearable. The rest of the outfit wasn't much better, the spandex-like fabric stretching over her form like a pale pink wetsuit, albeit one that could stop bullets. She had thrown a light blue hoodie over the top today, the skin-tight fabric not leaving much to the imagination, but she was sure it would be brought up in the after-action report. The new Heroes were meant to make an impression, after all, and apparently, a girl in baggy clothing just wouldn't make the cut.
Enid sighed and flicked her hair out of her eyes, the colored ends just long enough to be annoying if she didn't tie or slick it back somehow. This wasn't the time to get discouraged. She had known what she was signing up for; she knew the kind of games that came with being a Hero, even a junior one. The politics, the PR stunts, the hand-shaking and head-nodding. She was ready for it all, as long as it meant she could actually do some good, actually help people.
"You got this," she murmured, staring at the blue eyes reflecting back at her in the mirror, "Nice and easy. First patrol out, just don't make a fool of yourself, do what you are told, and soon you'll be—"
"Yo, E!" A loud thumping echoed through the door as someone with more strength than sense knocked hard enough to almost blow it off its hinges, "Sensor got a hit! Let's go!"
"I'm coming!" Enid yelled back, slapping her cheeks once before grabbing her phone from the side and tucking it into one of the many hidden pockets on her suit, rushing out of the door to see a veritable storm of movement going on. The large circular room she stepped into was the lobby of one of the United Coalition of Heroes' precincts. While regular police were still far more numerous than Heroes, capes, supers, or whatever other name was popular in the media that day,
The team Enid had been temporarily placed with wasn't exactly brimming with A-class Supers, but she didn't mind. Marvin, who went by Breaker when he was in uniform, was the guy who led the team and usually ran point on any sort of powered interactions. He was an Enhanced with a suite of super-strength, toughness, and speed that put him head and shoulders above the rest of the team, who were all junior Heroes still having their Powers evaluated. Breaker was talking to a woman with long, ice-blonde hair, a huge set of monitors in front of her.
"Really, Trace? How'd this slip by?" the giant man groused, a pair of camouflage-patterned cargo pants thrown on over his super-suit, hand sweeping through his hair despite how close it was cropped to his skull. "This didn't trip an alarm?"
"I think Marcus was trying to improve our systems again," the woman explained, scowling as she scrolled through screens faster than Enid could process, "and he slipped up. We are still within normal response time, as long as you hurry. I'll write up the report, but you need to get going."
"Right, right," he let out a sigh, cracked his neck, and then turned on his heel to face Enid, and the two other junior Heroes that would be accompanying him, "Alright, first day out, so we aren't throwing you under any buses. Looks like a bank job, no reports of any obvious powers, just some assholes with guns and no sense. What's the priority here?"
"Civilian life," the dark-haired girl across from Enid said. She hadn't caught her real name, but the moniker she was working under was Lifevine. Apparently, she was a plant controller, which Enid thought was pretty cool, even if she wasn't so sure about the name. "Even if their guns won't be a scratch on you, Sir, they are still a danger to everyone else in the bank. We need to either protect the civilians or remove the threat fast enough that they don't get injured, which will be hard without a Speedster."
"True, a speed-focused Enhanced would make this easier," Breaker conceded, then shrugged, "but we make do with what we have. Good summary though. So, as you may have heard, we are on a clock. The alert slipped past some of our Sensors, so we need to move out quickly. Thoughts?"
"Wait, we are in a rush? Why didn't you say so, boss-man? I can be there in less than a minute!" chuckled the other member of their team, hovering a few inches off the floor with his bright white suit and crayola green cape. Aspect, or Daryl, was a newbie, just like Enid and Lifevine, but he was brimming with confidence, and in the few training sessions they had squeezed in before their first patrol, he had spent more time waxing lyrical about his own abilities than he had actually practicing using them. "I can shoot off right now, and get it all tidied up before anyone else needs to worry!"
"Calm down, kid," Breaker rumbled, glaring at the excitable younger man, fingers tapping on the heavy pouched belt around his waist. "You aren't cleared for solo work yet, and even if you were, do you think you could take four guys down before one of them gets a shot off? Not just at you, but at a civvy?"
"I just thought—"
"You didn't think, that's the issue," Breaker growled, swiping his hand across his face, "But you're new, so that's fine. This is a chance to learn, so that when you are out there on your own, you get it right. So we protect civilians and stop criminals. Simple in theory, but usually harder to execute. E, you got anything to add?"
Enid had to stifle the blush at her lack of anything resembling a moniker. She was told to submit it days ago, but like so many other things in her life, she had procrastinated until it was past the deadline, and now she was going into the field without a Hero name, another thing she was sure would come up in her after-action report. The UCH sure did love their reports.
"Just that you and probably Dar—, I mean Aspect, can shrug off a bullet even if it breaches the suit or hits you in the face," Enid said, the slight squeak of her sneakers sounding through the hall as she started bouncing from foot to foot again. "I don't think the same can be said for Lifevine or me, as neither of us is an Enhanced, and I know it can't be said for the civilians. That means we don't just need to take them out fast, we need to minimize the amount of shots they get off in the first place, and hope these guys aim for center mass."
"It also means that you let us take point," Breaker said sternly, peering at all three of them intently, "You might have powers, but that doesn't make you invincible, not even if you feel like it. Sure, a bullet might not hurt me too much, but if someone pulls out an Inventor's weapon, I'm going to be ducking for cover, too. Alright, that's everything. Mount up in the truck! Aspect, you can fly if you prefer, but you don't breach without my say so. Understood?"
"Understood, Breaker," Aspect said stiffly, the slightly guilty look on his face enough evidence to know he had been thinking about it.
Enid let out a long breath as she climbed into the armored vehicle that Breaker so irreverently called the truck and tried to settle herself into her seat. Sure, she might not have had much training from within the UCH just yet, but she passed the test to get in. That had to count for something, didn't it?"
The man in the cape, a local Hero, Wednesday presumed, burst through the doors and rushed into the center of the room, his hands resting on his hips as he hovered in the air, looking imperiously around the bank. He had, however, blown straight past the criminal who had been standing over the guards, the same one who was now turning his shotgun to aim at the newcomers' backs. Wednesday stifled a sigh and flicked her fingers outward, the gesture focusing her will as a tendril of darkness whipped out of a patch of shadow to impact the underside of the gun, sending the widespread blast of buckshot rocketing into the plastered ceiling rather than scattering across the better part of the foyer. Scatterguns weren't exactly known for their accuracy, after all.
"Huh?" the cape mumbled, eyes widening as he whirled to see the ski-masked man staring in confusion at his own shadow, before rushing over and snatching the gun from his hands, his fingers gripping tight enough to make the metal double-barrel squeal under the pressure, "Surrender your weapons! On behalf of the UCH, you're under arrest!"
Wednesday just rolled her eyes, letting the mask she had been dragging out settle back around her neck. She wasn't going to get involved with licensed Heroes, not if she could avoid it. Not to mention, no matter how oblivious this Hero was, the fact that he was flying and had managed to crush gun-metal with barely a thought meant he was of the Enhanced variety, and she doubted anything any of these two-bit criminals could throw at him would be at risk of piercing his skin. She could just sit around and reschedule her appointment at a different branch. She could deal with all of this Hero and Villain nonsense—
"Fuck, Supes!" shouted one of the men with the automatic weapons, spinning on his heel. The hero in the cape was still zip-tying the hands of the first criminal, and while Wednesday could see another, much larger, man starting to emerge from the doorway, she didn't know if he was faster than a bullet. She could see the gun swing around, the muzzle starting to point towards the door, both Heroes, and, most importantly, the security guards and customers behind them.
The sound of gunshots echoed throughout the room as Wednesday winced, quickly pulling the half-mask that her father had made her out of her scarf and pressing it against her face. She wasn't going to be able to come back from this, not as easily as she wanted to, anyway. This was a complication, something that she abhorred, though not nearly as much as a waste of innocent life. As she looked up at the dark shield that had sprung from the shadows around the civilians, bullets mushroomed along its surface, and she decided perhaps the complication was worth it this time. Tendrils of darkness whipped out of each of the gunmen's shadows, nudging their weapons skyward as the giant of a man pounding into the room hit the first with a lowered shoulder, sending him spinning away into the far, each heavy footfall making the large room quake as he closed quickly on the next.
Wednesday thought, for perhaps a moment, that she would be able to slink into the shadows, to slip the mask off and attribute the shadows to a passing Hero, one just looking to help out, but as vines sprouted from the floor around the civilians, walling them off from any further gunfire, she noticed immediately that they weren't encompassing her. A quick look back at the exit confirmed her suspicions, as there were two other supers, one whose hands were glowing with green energy, and the other who was staring right at her.
She scowled, expression hidden behind the mask, as she looked into the bright blue eyes behind the offensively pink domino mask, and wondered why it had to be this bank on this day. Not just a pair of Heroes were breaking up the attempted robbery, but four of them?
"Maybe the family really is cursed," Wednesday spat, gaze darting as she searched for an exit. Complication after complication. Another shudder ran through the room as the large man in the military outfit dropped his weight fast enough to crack the ground, the final assailant bouncing off the marble floor like he was one of the skulls that her mother polished and used for bowling. A side exit? Fire escape? None she could see.
Through the front, then.
Enid stared at the dark-haired girl with a mask and wondered why this had to be her first patrol. Breaker had been clear, no sign of any powers on site. Just a bank robbery, some assholes with guns.
So why the hell was she staring at a full-fledged Villainess who had tried to snatch away the civilians on a wave of shadows? The Villain's eyes were moving rapidly. Looking for an escape, or planning the coming fight?
"Halt!" Aspect called out, despite the fact that the black-haired girl wasn't currently moving, swooping into the air about ten feet above her, "Cease this at once, Villain!"
"I am not a Villain," came the deadpan reply. A break from the normal script, admittedly, but Enid wasn't convinced. Breaker had finished tying the hands of the three robbers that he had subdued (after having to rush in faster than they had planned because fucking Daryl had jumped the gun, which had left Lifevine and Enid lagging behind), and was now cautiously moving towards the masked woman, "I simply used my abilities to shield the innocent. That is all."
"There aren't any other Heroes registered on patrol today," Breaker rumbled, tone low and gravelly. Enid thought his normal voice was imposing enough, but apparently, this was something the PR teams had picked out for him. "You off duty?"
"I am not a Hero, either," the woman said, and somehow, despite not being able to see her mouth, Enid could almost picture the sneer etched on her face, "I was simply here and did what needed to be done, because you could not."
Her gaze was fixed on Aspect's floating form, and it was clear at who she was directing her derision, which made the tanned man flush with anger.
"While we thank you for the aid," Breaker interrupted, firing enough of a glare at Aspect to shut the younger man up, "Unlicensed use of Powers in a public place for something other than self-defense is a crime. I am afraid we will need to record this. There is no penalty for first offenders; it is just to make sure that vigilantes don't pop up. I'm sure you understand?"
"Gunfire does not constitute proper grounds for self-defense?"
"The gun wasn't pointed at you, lady!" Aspect jeered like he was on a playground, which made Enid die a little inside, "It was them you protected, not you."
"I see," the girl in black nodded, but her gaze never left Breaker, "So you would have preferred it if I let them get shot?"
"It's just the law, and we follow the law," Breaker shrugged, stepping forward so that he was in front of Aspect, and it became clear that he absolutely towered over this supposed not-Villain (though considering the shadowy powers and the all black ensemble, Enid wasn't sure), "I'm thankful for your help, but recording it just means we can make sure it isn't a habit. Considering you are wearing a mask, I'm guessing this might not be a first-time offense, though."
"And how would that change things?"
"Vigilantism is a crime, of course, but there are mitigating factors," Breaker spoke, his voice softer now, and Enid almost didn't notice the buds that were starting to sprout out of the ground behind the girl he was talking to. A quick glance toward Lifevine confirmed the touches of green energy starting to gather around her fingertips. "All other factors aside, you saved lives. That will be taken into consideration."
"And if I don't want to go with you?"
The room froze. Breaker's face twisted into a frown, Aspect's into a sneer, and Enid began to draw on her Power, her fingers and jaw aching with the thrum of it.
"Don't make this hard, kid." Breaker's voice was quieter again, nearly a whisper. Enid doubted that Aspect, Lifevine, or anyone else could hear it, but she could, and she heard the dark-haired woman's reply.
"I will make nothing difficult," her voice was still calm, composed, emotionless, and Enid wondered how, when she was facing down someone the size of Breaker, someone so large that his shadow very nearly embraced the woman in darkness, that she could remain so steady. "I simply wish to be on my way. Stand aside, and all will be well."
"You know I can't do that."
"Well, then, we both know where we stand, do we not?"
Breaker nodded slowly, face still set into a near-grimace. His hands were clasped behind his back, and suddenly they were moving. Signaling. Enid nearly scowled when she was commanded to stay by the door, but then the entire building exploded into motion, and she suddenly had very little to complain about.
Lifevine acted first; the buds behind the Villain (or perhaps Vigilante? Enid still wasn't quite sure which was applicable here) suddenly burst into huge vines that swiftly wrapped around the space that she had been in. However, 'had been' was the most important part of that equation, as the new plant growths caught nothing but air, the woman seemingly flickering forward, image blurring for a second as she sprang into action.
She slid beneath Breaker's legs, the Hero looking perplexed when he reached out to grab her but missed by nearly a foot, and was on her feet before Aspect could swoop down to intercept her. By the time the green-caped Hero acted, the woman was already running full-tilt, and she managed to knock him off course with a flick of her hand, her own shadow following the motion and pushing his clumsy flying tackle aside. That was when Enid realized that not only was this Villain (she was getting surer and surer by the minute that her initial thought had been correct) running as fast as she could towards the door, but that Enid was the only one between her and freedom.
She let her Power flow, let the shift come, and then her mouth was filled with fangs and her nails had been replaced by claws, and she braced herself, clawed toes tearing sneakers to shreds as she curled them into the stone beneath her. She expected the woman in black to dodge, to slip around her as she had for her other two teammates, and she expected her animal reflexes to help her manage it. She hadn't expected for a shoulder wreathed in shadow to hit her diaphragm at a full sprint, bowling her over as the woman in black just kept running. It didn't matter, though, because now Enid had her scent.
"E, wait!"
She barely heard Breaker's call as her stride ate the pavement beneath her, following the scent of old parchment and ink deeper into the city.
There weren't enough curse words in any of the languages that Wednesday knew for this particularly frustrating situation.
Slipping out of the bank had been easy. The older Enhanced seemed skilled enough, but he had underestimated her, and slipping through the shadows had been enough to throw off his range. The one who controlled the plants, and Wednesday wasn't sure if she was a Witch or some kind of Plant Controller, had been too obvious in her calling of Power, and Wednesday hadn't even needed to use anything other than her own physical strength to get out of the way of her clumsily laid trap. The younger Enhanced, the one who had missed the scattergun, had been easy enough to redirect, the control of his momentum not yet practiced enough to adjust to her shadows moving him off-target. The final Hero, the one with the bright blue eyes and the pink mask, seemed to be a Shapeshifter, but she was easy enough to plow right through, her shift leaving her unprepared for a sudden assault. Wednesday idly wondered if it would be a teaching moment for the group.
What had not been easy was losing the tail that had remained on her since the bank. It didn't seem to matter how many side streets she took, how many shadows she slipped through, or how many diversions she found; she could still feel one of them following her. Judging by the few glimpses she had gotten in her hurried retreat, it was the Shifter, but she wasn't convinced that the rest of the group wasn't right behind her, waiting to strike.
It was nearly an hour of running before she finally decided it was useless. A rooftop above a barely-working factory was the location she chose for what she expected to be her final stand. She expected them to converge upon her, detain her, and pull her into their corrupt little organization. Perhaps they would attempt to draft her rather than imprison her, although she wasn't sure that was strictly better. She hadn't expected the Shifter, now red-faced and sweaty, to heave herself over the side of the building and freeze upon meeting her gaze.
"Oh," the blonde girl murmured, breathing a little heavily, "You're here."
"You were following me, were you not?" Wednesday deadpanned, brow drawn down in a scowl. This was who managed to follow her? "Surely this was your intent?"
"Honestly, I didn't think this far ahead," she laughed nervously, wiping her palms against the hoodie she had pulled over the distressingly tight supersuit. "Um, I guess asking you to give yourself up isn't going to work? Villains don't usually do that."
"I already explained that I am not a Villain," Wednesday growled, glaring at the Hero, "I simply do not wish to be arrested for doing the right thing. Is that so wrong?"
"You fought with Heroes," the Shifter shrugged, brushing the last of the accumulated dust and dirt from her hoodie as she rolled her shoulders, "Doesn't that make you a Villain?"
"As if it were that simple," Wednesday rolled her eyes, then looked over the Shifter. Claws, fangs, slightly pointed ears. There was something about her face, something almost… "Scent."
"What?"
"You were tracking my scent. That's how you followed me."
The Shifted didn't reply, but the scowl etched across her features was answer enough.
"Very well. I assume you are going to attempt to restrain me? Or are you going to wait for backup?"
The blush that rushed across the blonde's face was answer enough. She hadn't called her team, or she couldn't. Interesting.
"Well? What are you waiting for?" Wednesday asked, cocking an eyebrow, foot tapping impatiently.
"We aren't meant to…" the Shifter grumbled, rolling her neck, "Eurgh, fine."
Her shift happened in truth, then. The sound of tearing flesh and cracking bone was a symphony that Wednesday found herself appreciating, despite the circumstances. Longer claws, more fangs, digitigrade legs. A face that was more wolfish muzzle than human. It was almost like a—
She moved in a blur, fast enough that most without some sort of physical power wouldn't have been able to move in time. Wednesday stepped to the side, wrapped her knee in shadow, and slammed it directly into the Shifter's diaphragm, driving the air from her lungs and making her fall to her knees retching. A strike like that would incapacitate her for long enough that Wednesday could find somewhere to obscure her scent, so now was the perfect time to leave. There were plenty of shadows to slip through. As the blonde girl retched again, bile splattering the rooftop, Wednesday knelt with a sigh. She didn't touch her, but she waited, and she stayed.
"What are you—" the Hero's words were interrupted by another gag, "doing?"
"I'm not quite sure," Wednesday admitted, looking over the Hero with a critical eye, "I had expected you to dodge that, honestly. I either overestimated your fighting ability or underestimated your speed. Perhaps both."
The Shifter groaned, spitting on the ground. Wednesday could see traces of blood in the saliva, and was surprised to feel no pride in that fact. As the blonde girl staggered to her feet, her shift having receded slightly now, and got into a fighting stance, Wednesday shook her head.
"I do not relish beating you when you are already wounded and unprepared," she explained, crossing her arms, "You seem woefully unprepared, Miss…?"
"Oh, um, right. I don't have a Hero name yet."
"What?"
"It's my first day," came the reply, and it was in as entirely an embarrassed a voice as Wednesday felt it should be.
"Your first—" Wednesday let out a long sigh, letting it bleed the tension from her body, "Well, now I'm certainly not fighting you anymore. It would be like kicking a toddler, that is to say, it would perhaps be amusing, but to no real benefit."
The blonde didn't even try to stop the snort of laughter that rushed out of her.
"So we aren't fighting?"
"No."
"Oh, thank fuck," she murmured as she sank back to the ground, cradling her stomach. "You pack a hell of a punch."
"Thank you," Wednesday said with slight amusement. She hadn't expected a compliment and wasn't particularly sure what to do about it. "I would suggest you perhaps don't follow future criminals on your own, until you gain a better understanding of your Powers and more combat practice."
The Shifter just shrugged, staring up at the blue sky above them. "There aren't that many opportunities to practice. Junior Heroes need to be out on the street quickly so that people know what we look like, learn to trust us."
"And to improve the UCH's image, no doubt," Wednesday grumbled, holding up a hand to forestall any argument to the contrary, "Either way, as a Shapeshifter, your options are fluid and powerful. I encourage you to find time to spar and expand on them. Perhaps next time you will last more than one strike."
"Next time? I thought you weren't a Villain?"
"I am not," Wednesday nodded, stepping back so she was close to the edge of the building. Her father had always had a penchant for dramatic entrances and exits, and she had a sudden urge to follow in his footsteps. "Yet somehow, I doubt this is the last we will see of each other."
Before the Shifter could respond, she stepped back into the open air, plummeting towards the ground. She let the shadows embrace her and whisk her away before she impacted the cracked cement, and wondered just what kind of face the girl with the bright blue eyes would be making.