Wake-up Call – Chapter 90

[Victoria Dallon]

I am smarter than most people think I am.

To be fair… that's quite a low bar.

"Vicky, can we…" Amy asks as I reach for the doorknob to my bedroom.

I don't even twitch.

"Tomorrow, okay?" I say with a tired smile that it takes me some effort not to show as exhausted.

She, in front of her own room, fidgets, wringing her hands in that way she does when waiting for me on the hospital's roof.

I always thought she was anxious after dealing with so many sick people.

Because I'm smarter than people think I am, but people think I am a moron.

"Okay. Tomorrow," she says, badly hiding what she thinks about me postponing our talk.

My smile brightens just a bit as I nod her good night, and then I step into my room.

And immediately slump against my door and slide down the white-painted wood.

I… I bury my face on my knees, my back not straining a single bit despite how long it's been since I last stretched.

Because I let Amy take care of my body for me. I let her touch me, flood me with her power, explore me, and tweak me into all the ways she thinks are best.

I shudder.

I can still remember the last time. How she looked at me in a different way.

['Do you… do you want me to push? To make it better?'] she asked, her eyes focused on mine as her hand tightened on my wrist.

['What do you mean?'] I asked with my brow furrowed.

And then there was silence, and I only felt my pulse beating against her touch and her far too-intent eyes.

['Nothing. Never mind, just a silly thought,'] she said.

And so I claw my fingers under my knees, my shield fighting itself to both hurt me and protect me.

I almost sob.

Because I am smarter than I look.

I have… I have a pile of notebooks from when I was a kid, dreaming up what kind of superhero I could grow up to be, what powers I could get, how they could interact with those of my family.

And then I have the more organized notes. The ones I took after my trigger.

There's a gap of years between the notebooks and the files stored in the cloud.

The years in which I gave up. In which I decided that I would never be special. That I would never matter.

But I never stopped thinking.

Could Kaiser decide what kind of steel he produced? There are very different properties between good tool steel and support beams, after all, but I'm not an engineer to properly think how much of an impact that could have.

Hookwolf? That was a more interesting case. He has displayed shapeshifting capabilities, so why a wolf? Is it a psychological limitation? Can he be pushed further? What if he collaborated with a Tinker?

Purity? Her output was linked to her exposure to sunlight, but the conversion wasn't a one-to-one ratio. Could she be used in civilian pursuits? Provide energy generation in emergency situations?

Yeah. That last one no longer matters that much.

But these are just idle thoughts. Musings. Pastimes.

The real work went into studying possible interactions. Into knowing that Othala's regeneration depends on the patient being conscious, so if she ever collaborated with Ames, keeping patients aware would be a priority in the rare cases where Amy could not—[would not] heal something that Othala's regeneration could.

As for Alabaster and Lung?

Well, that was a fun one.

See, the idea is that Alabaster is [immortal]. He resets immediately to moments before any injury.

Such as being burned alive.

And Lung? Lung keeps growing as long as there's danger, becoming stronger while he's still threatened.

And losing strength as soon as he isn't.

The issue, what makes him unsuitable for fighting an Endbringer, or the Siberian, or Night and Fog, or anything that can strike suddenly and with overwhelming power, is that he needs time to grow strong enough to match any threat.

So… The quick solution would be to challenge him beforehand. Strike hard and fast, force his power to match the threat, and then send him on his way toward Leviathan, or Behemoth, or whatever.

Except then he would stop growing once his strength matched the threat he was set against.

And Lung isn't that smart.

So, in a duel between equivalent might, I wouldn't precisely bet on him.

Now, with all that established… what if he was still threatened? If he was still being harmed even as he grew powerful enough not to be immediately dissected by a water echo?

What if he [swallowed] Alabaster?

What if he had an immortal, indestructible man inside of him, constantly tearing through quickly regenerating internal organs? What if the danger of dying never went away no matter how much Lung grew?

What if he towered over the [other] overgrown lizard of nightmares?

Yeah.

That.

That's the kind of thing I can think about for a few hours, studying and referencing articles and videos, weighing the arguments found on PHO when I feel bold enough to give them some kind of credit.

That's the kind of thing I have thought about Amy.

Both for good and bad.

So I knew what she was talking about. I knew what 'pushing' could mean.

I knew what Amy could do to my body because I've thought about it, and I often felt grateful that she triggered after I did. Because if she had done it before…

Well.

Emily Piggot just showed me what would've happened.

I have my own folder devoted to all the ways in which Amy could affect the human body, both in benign and nightmarish ways, but I have never mentioned it to her. Not while she devoted herself to healing, to being the kind of hero I could never be, one that mends rather than break.

I didn't want to steer her away from that.

I wanted her to be happy.

To not be in the middle of a fight, threatened, having a weapon but not a shield. To not see what I often see when I patrol Brockton and find yet another Nazi walking away from a crime he knows he won't be prosecuted for or when I'm too late to help a girl who will never again smile like she used to. I wanted Amy to be where she could help without…

Without…

I have been such a hypocrite.

I have… used her. Tossed her into my own mess every time I've lost control.

Hurt her.

And I still kept thinking.

Still kept taking notes.

Still felt…

I remember her touch on my wrist. Her intent eyes on mine. The way her breath caught before making her offer.

I remember knowing that I shouldn't be afraid because she would [know], and that could trigger what I was fearing.

And now she…

She loves me.

And what she could have done to me is so much worse than I first thought.

I take a shuddering breath and float up, still huddled into a ball, still clawing at my shins with a strength that is equal to the one protecting me.

Sometimes, I drop on top of my bed, enjoying the childish pleasure of bouncing up, not under my own power.

Now, I… I slowly set down over the powder blue duvet.

I should call Dean.

He's… He will be sleeping, but he always picks up, no matter how late it is when I have my latest sanity break. When I am the needy, bitchy, stupid girlfriend who's too high-maintenance and keeps piling her problems on top of someone who already is set on taking the world upon his shoulders.

He's… noble.

Sometimes, I resent him for it.

But I always love him in spite of it.

I stop holding my legs just to take out my phone, and I browse through it mindlessly, not processing what I'm looking at until I find myself hugging Amy and smiling broadly at the camera.

We're both wearing short-sleeved shirts.

My hand is on her arm. Her bare arm.

I… I like touching the people I love. Knowing they are still there. That they haven't been taken away.

That they haven't left me.

So I will need to keep touching Amy.

I just… I just don't know what she'll see when I do.

I bite my lip and try to… to both think and not think about it. Because it is too big, and I'm too tired, but I'll have to face my sister [tomorrow], so I can't postpone this, and I'm going to go [insane]—

The phone rings.

Lisa.

"What do you want?" I ask with no pleasantries whatsoever as I turn to lie on my back.

"To apologize," she says.

I almost laugh.

"What for? The kidnapping? The flashbang? The [other] kind of bomb you dropped on my lap?"

"Yes," she answers with a hint of a laugh.

"Mathematician's answer. Such a fresh joke," I say, not even knowing why I banter back.

Habit, I guess.

It's the superhero thing to do, after all.

"Not all of them can be winners," she says, and I can easily picture the one-shoulder shrug.

Snarky blondes. We have that much in common.

"Hey," she continues when I don't answer. "I… Thank you. Before anything else, thank you for playing along."

"Didn't have much of a choice, did I?"

"You did. It's just that you picked the option that will help your sister in the long term."

"I am not so sure about that…" I say.

To the Thinker.

And immediately regret it.

"Don't," she says, firm but not unkind. "What I saw in that room? When you held her? That wasn't a lie, Vicky. Don't let yourself get tangled in your fears."

"That's easier said than done."

"It is, isn't it? So… how about we [do] something about it?"

I kick up my right leg, looking at my toes stretching the tip of my white sock right over my face.

Again, without any strain.

I can hold my feet behind my ears. Dean has enjoyed [that] often enough.

And I shudder to think what could have gone through Amy's head when making me… like this.

"What do you suggest, then? Hopefully, not some crappy visualization with green grass," I tell her, the phone growing hot on my ear.

"There's absolutely nothing crappy about my guided relaxations. I can tune them precisely to the person they are meant for and achieve a hypnagogic state—"

"First you're psychic, and now you're a hypnotist. Right. Anything else you want to add to the list? Maybe you're the Simurgh's long-lost daughter?"

"My, Vicky, if you wanted me to sing you a lullaby, you just had to ask," she says with a… suggestive tone.

I close my eyes, resist the urge to pinch the bridge of my nose, and take the phone in front of me, setting it on speaker mode so I'll have something to glare at while the talk orchestrated by a Thinker I'm still not convinced is that benign is ongoing.

"I am [straight]," I say.

"As an arrow not subjected to the archer's paradox, yeah. That's part of the issue, isn't it?"

I take a deep breath.

"Even if I wasn't… No. She's… She's [Amy]. I could never…"

"Ouch. Poor girl. You don't pull your punches, do you?"

"That's not what I mean! She's—she's… She's my sister. She's always… She's the most important person to me. The one I can't afford to risk."

"The one you first protected. The one that made you feel like a hero."

I stare at the white rectangle of light with Lisa's name on it.

Lisa.

Not Tattletale nor Sarah.

Not even a joking reference or an enigma to pick apart.

Just… the name she inputted into my phone while I was unconscious.

Because she was already thinking about making this call.

"You make it sound so selfish…" My voice fades away at the end of the line, and I don't know how I would continue it. If I would deny or affirm it.

"It is. It is selfish to feel good after helping somebody else. That doesn't mean it's bad."

"It… It cheapens it. Like you should do it because it's the right thing to do, not because of how you'll feel afterward."

"Really? Is that what Glory Girl thinks? The one who practices superhero landings and leaves plenty of potholes behind?"

I fight the slight blush.

I lose.

"That is not… It's… It's part of the job. I have to be [inspiring], or what's the point of wearing a bright costume?"

"Some would argue that there's no point in wearing the cape and tiara, Vicky."

Damn it.

"Is this what talking to a therapist feels like? Because I don't think I like it."

"Nah. This is, at most, about twenty percent of the therapist experience. I haven't asked you about your mother, have I?"

[Now] I do massage the bridge of my nose.

And she giggles.

Of course she does.

"I was under the impression you were calling about my [urgent] issues, not the entrenched ones," I finally say, but mostly to talk over her annoying mirth.

"Yes, I was. And I'm not even going to pretend I would be able to solve all of your family trauma with a single call in the middle of the night, so let's focus on that particular subject, shall we?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Do you? Did you? When you saw Amy breaking down, wretched, destroyed by her fear of your rejection, did [you], Victoria Dallon, have a choice?"

I remember.

The fear. The anxiety. The intense emotions washing away my always-present fury.

The nugget of an intuition about what was truly going on.

But, even if I hadn't had that, even if I hadn't guessed what Lisa's true plans were…

I would still have stood up to hug Amy.

"No," I say.

"Good," she answers.

"Good?" I burst out into surprised laughter that is very far from merry. "What's good about that, Lisa? What's so good about me being reckless, impulsive—"

"A million is only a statistic," she says with a detached, clinical, cold tone.

And something clenches in my gut.

Without even meaning to, I think back on another section of my notes. The ones devoted to enemies I have faced on the field. The ones pondering whether or not they were pulling their punches, holding the proverbial ace up their sleeves that so many capes do while stakes aren't life or death.

The one I wrote a lengthy section on after the bank.

Skitter was bad enough. She could easily put to shame any of the members of the Nine except Bonesaw.

But Tattletale?

Tattletale, gifted with supernatural insight in a world in which every single person with a superpower is afflicted by deep, paralyzing trauma that pushes them through the rest of their lives?

How easily could she destroy any of us if she decided to? How could she subvert Amy herself like she almost had and make my worries about Bonesaw frighteningly obsolete? How would she go about infiltrating the local Protectorate until the law itself was on her side?

How would she turn [Alexandria?]

"I often wonder myself, you know? How far can I push myself and [others]? Should I? It's… It's hard, at times, not to. Not to see all of you as puzzles waiting to be solved. My power is kind enough not to force it on me, but when I see all the buttons and levers… well, sometimes you just have to [push]," she says with a disturbing mix of idle fancy and clinical detachment.

The one thing Amy never developed.

"Somebody would stop you. Not everyone can be susceptible; there have to be limits—" I say, immediately jumping on the argument, refusing to acknowledge my most pessimistic predictions and speculations.

Refusing to give in.

And she laughs.

"See? This is why I both hate and like you, Vicky. Because you [have] to be a hero. I could be cynical and tie it to your desperate need to belong with the shining paragons of virtue you grew up admiring, but… you're not that naïve. You know what most heroes are like. What ugly, broken things go on behind the nice PR façade."

"Don't… That doesn't [matter]. We aren't perfect? We make mistakes? We are [human]? Fuck, yes, we [are]! And humans will struggle, will make mistakes, but will [always] try to do the right thing."

"Try?"

"Yes. Try. And that's the only thing that matters."

There's silence, and I no longer glare at the white screen. Not while I try to breathe slowly, to get a grip on myself and my volatile temper that always has me rushing in maybe sooner than I should.

Okay, [a lot] sooner than I should, according to Mom.

"So. Statistics," Lisa says.

Lisa, not Tattletale.

I'm starting to see the difference.

"Statistics," I say. "According to them, most people aren't assholes."

And she, again, laughs.

But there's joy in it this time.

"I guess I'm a bit of an outlier," she tells me.

"[A bit?"] I answer.

"Are you saying I'm the most extraordinary girl you've ever met, Vicky? That you can't think of anybody as special as I am? That you can't help but compare me to everybody else you've ever met and find them all wanting? My, how tempting, but I'm sorry to say I'm engaged. I am flattered, really, and I wish you the best of luck finding another snarky blonde, but that's not going to be me unless reincarnation is a thing and I become the blissed-out nexus of a Sapphic polyamory pile-up, which I'm kinda hoping for given all the good karma I'm owed."

I stare at my phone.

Then I drop it on top of my chest, hide my eyes behind my palms, and [groan].

"I don't see how [this] is helping," I finally say.

"Well, from [my] perspective—"

"I don't see how this is helping [me]."

"Ah. Then… for starters, while you're reeling from your recently discovered lesbian leanings toward cute former supervillains—"

"I [don't] have those. At all. And this is extremely inappropriate behavior from a therapist."

"Good thing I am not a therapist."

I lift up my phone just to glare at it once again, wishing for some kind of second trigger that will allow my aura to travel through the line.

The world insists on vexing me.

"Yeah. Good thing," I say, dryly enough that my throat feels parched.

"Anyway, while you're reeling from your constantly switching worldview, you no longer think that your sister having a slightly inappropriate crush on you is that big of a deal."

I blink.

Then I groan.

[Again.]

"You can't be serious," I say, realizing mid-line that [maybe] she can't.

Power-inflicted character traits are a thing, after all.

"Don't call me Shirley," she immediately answers, lending more weight to my theory.

"I'm going to hang up."

"Why do people always say that? They never do—"

I hang up.

Which, somehow, ends with me grinning and a sense of relief washing through me.

Of course, that only lasts until the phone rings.

"Bitch," she says as soon as I answer it.

"Karma," I answer.

She, again, laughs.

Apparently, I'm very amusing.

"Okay, okay, nice callback. But, as I was saying, what this whole conversation has been gearing toward making you realize in a bout of impactful self-realization is that…"

She drags out the pause.

I [refuse] to play along.

And then the pause keeps dragging, so I sigh and give her what she wants:

"What? What's the one piece of wisdom you would impart on me?" I say with a very sincere, not-at-all exasperated tone.

"That you're a good person, Victoria Dallon," she says.

And I blink at my phone on speaker. Again.

"Well, [obviously]," I finally answer.

"Oh, right, I forgot that you don't have that particular hang-up."

"What—"

"Sorry, I'm used to dealing with people forced into villainy by horrible circumstances who need a reminder that they are human, after all. It's just force of habit, by this point."

"Are you being [serious] right now?"

"Don't call me—"

"You finish that joke, and I'll personally find you, blast you into muteness with an aura of dread and terror, and drop you somewhere over the ocean."

"If you want to see me in a wet shirt so badly, you're gonna have to ask my fiancée for permission."

"Hanging up—"

"You are a good person. You are a good, loving sister, and you'd never do anything that could hurt Amy. You are afraid and reeling, but that's more out of novelty, out of shock, than real issues. You [have] dealt with friends having a crush on you, with people being attracted to you in a way you didn't reciprocate, and that wasn't the end of the world."

"I—it's not the same—"

"No, it isn't. But it's close enough. And you're obsessing over every minor detail not out of genuine fear of Amy suddenly going Heartbreaker on you but because you are disoriented and you need to find a big enough fear to dump all that anxiety on. You don't believe your sister would do that to you, and she most definitely won't while still being hot for teacher for Piggot—"

"That is the most disturbing sentence you have said to me—"

"Yup. And that's on purpose, Vicky, because I need you out of the hole you were digging yourself into, and I'd rather have you reeling than morose."

I don't answer.

Instead, I get up.

Without using my power, just sitting up on my bed before swinging my legs over the edge of it, taking a moment to stand up and switch the phone from speaker mode to handset before I walk to the desk set under my window.

There are… a lot of things on it. It's not precisely cluttered, but I have notebooks from school and college, a few stacked books, a sandalwood penholder filled with plenty of things that are, most of them, not pens, my laptop…

A picture of Amy and I.

I'm also hugging her in this one, my arm draped over her shoulders.

We are ten.

It was a Christmas morning, and both of us got the same shirt, one I had told Mom I wanted, with a sequined star that changed colors if you brushed your hand across it and flipped the sequins along the way.

Both of us match.

And we both smile.

So. Yes. This is my fear.

My fear is losing Amy.

And that's bigger than all the others I've been thinking about since Dad was cured, and I allowed the creeping anxiety to set in.

"Some of those friendships… the ones that fell for me? They ended. Badly," I say.

"I know," she says, her tone patient.

"I… I always feel guilty, you know? When I have to reject someone. When I have to make them feel hurt because they feel something I don't. There's a part of me that just wants to accept them and not go through that. Make them happy even if I am not."

"Yes. But you're brave enough not to do that."

"I wouldn't call it being brave," I say, tracing the powder blue frame of the picture with a single finger.

There's a faded rainbow bursting out of a cloud in the right corner, the pale wood already visible through some of the spots where the paint is missing.

It matches the one in Amy's room.

The same picture, looked at with very different eyes.

"No, you wouldn't," Lisa says.

And doesn't add anything else.

The pause lingers this time, but it's… different. Like when I call Dean, and we drift off into wordless companionship.

Except Dean isn't an entirely inappropriate lesbian.

"Are you better?" she asks after a bike passes by the street in front of my window, the noise of the engine fading out as the driver gets farther away.

"I think so."

"Good," she says.

And then I…

I look at the half-transparent reflection of one Victoria Dallon in the dark window in front of me, my face split in two by a vertical piece of white-painted wood that separates the panes of swirly, old glass.

"Lisa?" I ask.

"Yes?"

"What was the point of all this? The inevitable conclusion of your master plan?"

She doesn't laugh. Doesn't chuckle.

But, when she answers, I can hear the smile in her words.

"To remind you that you're brave. That you're a hero. That a million is not, and never should be, a statistic. That there's good in doing the small things, in helping the people right in front of you.

"To tell you that you're a good person, Victoria Dallon.

"And a loving sister."

Then, before I can fully process her words, she hangs up.

And leaves me staring at my reflection.

It takes me some time to set the phone down on my desk, by the side of a powder blue, faded picture frame.

I should ask Crystal to repaint it. She used to be into arts and crafts.

But, before she does…

I turn on my heels, walk out of my room, and take three long, determined steps down the corridor.

Then I, slowly, hesitatingly, and not bravely at all, knock on Amy's door.

"Hey, Ames, can we talk?" I ask.

And her door opens.

==================

This work is a repost of my most popular fic on QQ (https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/wake-up-call-worm.15638/), where it can be found up to date except for the latest two chapters that are currently only available on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Agrippa?fan_landing=true)—as an added perk, both those sites have italicized and bolded text. I'll be posting the chapters here twice weekly, on Wednesday and Friday, until we're caught up. Unless something drastic happens, it will be updated at a daily rate until it catches up to the currently written 95 chapters (or my brain is consumed by the overwhelming amounts of snark, whichever happens first).

Speaking of Italics, this story's original format relied on conveying Power's intrusions into Lisa's inner monologue through the use of italics. I'm using square brackets ([]) to portray that same effect, but the work is more than 300k words at the moment, so I have to resort to the use of macros to make that light edit and the process may not be perfect. My apologies in advance

Also, I'd like to thank my credited supporters on Patreon: LearningDiscord, Niklarus, Tinkerware, Varosch, Xalgeon, and aj0413. If you feel like maybe giving me a hand and helping me keep writing snarky, useless lesbians, consider joining them or buying one of my books on https://www.amazon.com/stores/Terry-Lavere/author/B0BL7LSX2S. Thank you for reading!