Hotel, Philadelphia, 9:52 PM.

August 22nd, 2010.

“Well shit,” Byrna said dejectedly. “What am I supposed to do then? I can’t keep trying my luck-Virago is still on my case.”

Aiden couldn’t help but roll his eyes before he trapped the phone between his ear and shoulder.

“Just stop robbing places, obviously,” Aiden said incredulously. “It's not that hard.”

“If I could just stop, I would have,” Byrna said, annoyed, “Come on, just hang around for a little bit longer. I really need the money.”

“Why don’t you ask Selena?” Aiden huffed.

“I did!” Byrna complained, “She doesn’t like lending me money, for reasons I’m never going to tell you; she told me to get a better job instead.”

Ouch, Selena was ruthless. It was pretty funny, though.

“Stop laughing!” Byrna cried in outrage.

“Sorry,” Aiden laughed before shaking his head. “Look, I’ll be in Boston by the end of this month, one way or another.”

There was a groan of pure suffering, and he rolled his eyes again.

“Tell me why you need the money and how much,” Aiden said leadingly. “In that order.”

Byrna groaned again but finally cracked.

“Look, my housing situation is complicated-the barebones is, my dad had a deal with the original owners who owed him a lot of money to live in the house free of charge,” Byrna said quickly; he could vaguely remember Selena mentioning it. “When dad died, they reneged on the whole free of charge thing, but they were kind enough to keep the price down enough that I could afford it on my teacher's wage.”

Aiden couldn’t find within him a single fuck to give about her tragic rental backstory, but you reap what you sow, and he had made the mistake of asking; he would learn from this mistake.

“Okay, I get it, leaving you with most of your income paying for the rented ‘family home,’” Aiden interjected carelessly, “Why not work out a deal to buy the house off them? The mortgage repayments would probably be lower than whatever they are asking you to pay.”

“I wasn’t finished!” Byrna cried, “You ass!”

“Fine,” Aiden whined; life was suffering.

“The owners died about six months ago,” Byrna said caustically, and he blinked. “Their daughter inherited the house, she knew about the deal already, but she’s a total bitch and sold the house.”

What the hell kind of twisty story was this?! This was some soapy day-time television bullshit right here.

“Then her deceased mothers, ex-husband decided he wanted his fair share of the inheritance,” Aiden interjected. “But it turns out that he actually had a closer claim to it then the daughter because he was, in fact, the mothers biological-”

“Shut up! I’m almost done.” Byrna cried in outrage. “The new owners got the lower rent rate overturned, now I have to pay the full rate, and it's way too much. The only way I can even keep up is to-”

“Oh my god, lady,” Aiden whined, “You could have just said that you can’t afford the rent. Here's a novel solution for you; move out, find somewhere cheaper. Boom. Problem solved.”

“I don’t want to move out!” Byrna complained, “I grew up here!”

“So? It's just a house!” Aiden said firmly, “Between the jacked-up payments, the full-time job that you don’t even like, and the constant risk of being jailed-you’re being crushed under the weight, but it’s a weight of your own making.”

“Stop talking about weight!” Byrna cried, “You’re making me nervous!”

“For the love of-” Aiden rolled his eyes for the umpteenth time. “Here: quit your job, move out, and come work for me in Boston; I need to recruit someone who can make all this science stuff anyway.”

Byrna was quiet for a long moment.

“Where would I stay?” Byrna said nervously, sounding quite a bit out of her depth. “What would I be doing?”

“A hotel room, for now. I’m staying in one until my new apartment is ready to move in; I’m waiting on another guy whos looking into warehouses, although I have some help on that front.” Aiden said vaguely.

Calvin was handling the apartment stuff, while Emil and Tracy were handling finding a warehouse for the gravity room.

“My next paycheck isn’t for another week,” Byrna said hesitantly, “I won’t have enough to stay in a hotel for long.”

Aiden had meant that he would pay for her hotel room, but clearly, it had been lost in translation.

“It’s fine; you can crash on my couch until your up and running again,” Aiden said easily, upping the pressure; a bit more, and she was likely to fold. “How much do you make a year?”

“Um,” Byrna said awkwardly, “Sixty?”

“Bullshit,” Aiden said immediately.

She was the worst liar in the history of liars.

“Fifty-one,” Byrna said embarrassedly.

“Yikes,” Aiden did some quick mental math, “What do you take home a year, forty?”

“Yes,” Byrna coughed.

Somewhere around three thousand a month, she’d mentioned that she paid a bit lower than that in rent earlier. People really didn’t understand the concept of living below their means, and what the hell was up with a teacher’s wage? That was some bullshit.

“I’ll match that; Keep in mind if you take the offer, it will end up being higher once we have more cash flow.” Aiden said easily, “You coming to Boston, or do I need to go chat up Killer Frost?”

He could almost see her biting her lip in indecision.

Hotel rooftop, Boston, 11:02 PM.

September 7th, 2010.

Aiden stepped out of the stairwell onto the roof, almost immediately spotting the person who had called him here. He walked casually over to the ledge and sat down beside her.

“So, you somehow knew about when the League of Shadows were going to blow up my apartment.” Aiden said curiously, “Are you one of them?”

Enkidu looked like she was measuring her response before turning to face him more fully and spoke very deliberately.

“I am not a member of the League of Shadows,” Enkidu said slowly.

There was a very noticeable pause at the end, indicating quite clearly that she was leaving something unsaid. Something was definitely going on here; she was trying to tell him something without actually saying anything.

Alright then, he’d play the game; he turned his mind to the task.

Assuming she was being honest, which made the most sense given that she had been attempting to help him, she was not a member of the League of Shadows, but she was suggesting something. A former member, perhaps? If she were a former member, there should be no reason that she would be unable to tell him anything. It could be that by her telling him at all, she would somehow indicate to them that she was the one who had leaked the information.

From what he had seen of both Enkidu and the members of the League of Shadows so far, she would have been able to defeat the ones they had sent after him without much effort, she was actually a trained combatant, and her strength and speed far surpassed a base human.

He studied her face for a moment before looking away, time to prune some possibilities.

“Those guys really went after me, kind of scary, right?” Aiden asked casually. “Are you afraid of the League of Shadows, Enkidu?”

She smiled.

“I really don’t like that group,” Enkidu said easily, “I don’t think any of them are truly a threat to me, though; you’ve seen what I’m like in a fight. At least so long as they don’t manage to sneak up on me; that is kind of their thing, though.”

Not afraid of reprisals from them for leaking the information or speaking about them so generally, and she was obviously not a fan of the group. She was still involved enough with them to have insider knowledge somehow. What kind of circumstances forced you to work with a group you didn’t like when you weren’t afraid of them?

Oh.

“I’ve been thinking of starting a group myself; I think I mentioned it to you a while back,” Aiden said idly, glancing over and studying her face. “You remember that?”

“I do,” Enkidu said evenly, meeting his eyes.

“There’s a lot of issues that might crop up; I mean, what if somewhere down the line the people that join my group want to quit?” Aiden said curiously, “If they knew a lot of my secrets or my identity, I might not be able to just let them do whatever they pleased. How would I go about keeping them from talking about any of that? Hmm.”

Enkidu watched him quietly for a moment.

“You’re looking for ideas?” Enkidu said intently, and he nodded non-commitally. “I suppose as the leader of your group, you could cut out their tongues that would silence them.”

Leader of the group, keeping them silent. Since she still had her tongue, that must have meant ‘keep them from talking’ with some kind of pressure or control from above. This seemed a little bit above his pay grade; who exactly was she working for? He wished he had watched more of the show when he had the chance.

Who were the big players that would use force or control to keep their minions in line? A player who would ally themselves with the League of Shadows, closely enough that their own minions would know when they were attacking targets. Lex Luthor was the obvious one, but it did not jog any memories. He was one of the people in that shadow group; he could vaguely remember that.

Aiden closed his eyes and focused.

Enkidu was working for someone. That, someone, was working with the League of Shadows. The League of Shadows was probably working for Lex Luthor, or whoever else was on that shadow council or all of them.

Enkidu’s ‘leader’ might even be on that council.

If that were the case, and she was doing her best to tell him, through whatever control they had over her, she was obviously an unwilling participant who wanted out. So how did he use what he knew here to get her on his side?

Control, control, control.

“It’s a funny thing, control,” Aiden said distractedly, and Enkidu’s eyes widened slightly. “You sometimes have it, and sometimes someone has it over you. Friends, family, authority figures, the government, life. They all have some form of control over you, it can be hard to see at first, but it’s there.”

One of those things that he had noticed while growing up, particularly in those early years of high school. You did not have much control then, and everyone around you was seemingly scrambling for it. You could not decide where you wanted to go or who you got to spend time with, not without getting some kind of okay from whoever was the one on top.

Maybe it was your parents, boxing you in with guidelines to follow; some were tough, some were strict, some easy, and some he didn’t want to think about. It could be your friends, throwing that social pressure around, and deciding who you were allowed to talk to and who was to be shunned. It could take a hundred different forms or more, but the end result was the same; they wanted to be the one holding the leash.

So who was it that held Enkidu’s leash? A parent? A friend? Or something more abstract?

“You got any friends, Enkidu?” Aiden said curiously, “Besides me, of course.”

Enkidu twitched minutely at the question before tilting her head.

“I’m not sure I’d call them friends.” Enkidu said carefully, “But sure.”

Not friends, but people in the same position as her, relatively at least; every organization had a structure, a pecking order.

“Co-workers?” Aiden offered indifferently.

“I know a lot of people.” Enkidu shrugged.

Pretty vague, sort of friends, sort of co-workers, in the same boat as her, a lot of them, different jobs?

“Got any family?” Aiden said idly.

Enkidu did not say anything; he glanced over; she was staring straight at him. Interestingly, she could not or would not answer such a direct question. That was most likely a yes then, a big family if her previous comments were anything to go by.

“I was an only child myself,” Aiden said thoughtfully, “I always thought it would have been interesting to have a sibling. I think I would have spent a lot of time with them, what do you think?”

“Hypothetically, I agree that it would be interesting to have a sibling,” Enkidu said carefully. “I probably wouldn’t spend much time with them in that case.”

Enkidu worked alone, but she had many ‘siblings.’ If I were trying to convey a specific thing, someone whom I had a complicated relationship with, but I could not actually say anything…

“When I think of a sibling, I think we would look-alike,” Aiden suggested, “If you did have a sibling, would they look a lot like you?”

“It’s a nice night,” Enkidu said evenly, very slowly turning to look to her left and then to the right.

Siblings, Co-workers, Not-friends, lots, different roles within the organization, different tasks, they looked different. The first thing that had come to mind was that she was a clone and that her other ‘siblings’ were also clones. There was plenty of that going around in comic books, so it had made sense.

Now he wasn’t so sure; if they didn’t look alike at all, it probably wasn’t cloning.

“If I had a brother, I think we would have gotten into a lot of fights,” Aiden laughed easily, “Developed a rivalry, that kind of thing. How about you?”

“Most likely,” Enkidu said evenly, studying his face.

“My dad taught me a lot, especially about business, but he rode me pretty hard,” Aiden said thoughtfully, thinking back and trying to ignore the pang in his chest. “Lot of good memories, just as many bad. Your parents still around?”

“My parents are both gone,” Enkidu said flatly, without any detail.

A big tonal shift, anger, a sore spot. Had they done something to them? Aiden studied her for a moment; her costume was good quality, much better than anything he had made. It looked professionally done, and she apparently had enough money to fly all over America whenever she pleased.

“How old are you again?” Aiden asked curiously.

“Nineteen,” Enkidu said, bemused at the non-sequitur.

A nineteen-year-old with a lot of money to play with, apparently.

“You got a job? A paying job, I mean, during the day.” Aiden clarified, “None of that hero nonsense.”

“No.” Enkidu huffed, “and I’m feeling personally attacked right now.”

Aiden grinned.

No job, no parents, lots of money. Either her parents were well off and left her with a tidy sum, or she had a benefactor who was paying for her gear, this mysterious ‘leader’ no doubt.

“You got any savings?” Aiden prodded, smirking.

“No,” Enkidu said, annoyed.

Mysterious benefactor, it was.

“How long have you been able to kick criminal ass in hand to hand combat?” Aiden prompted, narrowing in on his next lead. “Or jump straight up to the rooftops from an alleyway?”

He saw her eyebrow rise behind her mask.

“Two years,” Enkidu said with interest.

She’d been able to answer that easily, how curious; only had her powers for two years, she wasn’t able to talk about certain things without some unknown repercussion, she had many ‘siblings, not friends, co-workers, possibly rivals,’ her parents were dead, and her unknown ‘leader,’ who was probably a villain, controlled the purse strings, and everything else in her life.

She wanted out.

“If you said something-hmm, bad, would someone die tonight?” Aiden said curiously.

“Yes,” Enkidu said simply, apparently it was vague enough to answer.

Well shit.

“This was fun; we should do it again-Last question for now,” Aiden said, yawning, and Enkidu nodded. “You or me.”

“Me,” Enkidu said, smiling, standing up and giving a little wave. “See you around.”

“Yeah,” Aiden said easily. “See you.”

Either there were snipers following her around with a gun pointed at her head at all times, or she was a 'bomb' of some sort waiting to explode. What form the bomb took was academic; it might have been poison or explosive in nature for all he knew, or it might have been a threat to the people she knew, her remaining loved ones. It might have been some kind of magically enforced comic book nonsense, or something else in a similar vein.

Whatever form the 'control' took; it was able to somehow track what she said and knew the guidelines of what could be said and what could not-but it wasn't picking up on hints or vague deception. Probably not a human overseer, a magical AI of some kind going over her words? Her attempts at working around an oath? A recording device didn’t really make sense. This conversation would have been incredibly suspicious if that was true; Enkidu wouldn’t have done it this way if that was the case; a written note would have been safer.

The situation made no sense to him.

A girl apparently developed superpowers when she was seventeen, was recruited into some kind of organization for two years, had a figurative or literal control bomb placed in her to ensure compliance, and was then sent out to be a hero? What kind of twisted mental gymnastics did you have to do to think that was a good idea? Forcing someone to be a hero absolutely wasn’t a moral action, regardless of whether or not that person went on to save lives; It was enslavement, plain, and simple.

Even if you bypassed the moral problems with it, why would a villain forcibly make a hero?

Aiden didn’t know.