Sabah winced at the grinding sound of the transmission as she slid her car into park. “Gonna have to get that looked at soon,” she grumbled. As a successful rogue, she wasn’t hurting for money per se, but accommodating NEPEA-5 meant she took a lot less profit from her boutique, The Dollhouse, than she would if she didn’t have powers, and that meant being frugal wherever possible. Thankfully she was able to secure a storefront near Brockton Bay University, which cut down her commute significantly but far more importantly was in a safer section of the city where she wasn’t really bothered by the very race focused gangs.

It was important to avoid the gangs on principle, but it was especially important as a person of color. She took great efforts to hide her heritage as Parian, her cape identity, in the hopes of challenging people’s conceptions about race when she made it big and unveiled herself, but it was likewise a preemptive self-defense against being targeted by the gangs of the city. Unfortunately, that same defense did not extend to her civilian identity, so she still needed to be careful coming and going from the Dollhouse.

She turned off the car, pulled her cell phone from the pocket of her bag, and brought up her text history.

[still good 4 economics 2nite?]

[I’m a bit distracted, but I should be good. Let me know when you’re here.]

She slung the over-the-shoulder bag across her chest and made her way inside, tapping out a quick response,

[here be up soon]

In short order she reached the right floor by elevator and started down the hall. Her nose wrinkled at the smell of burning meat as she turned the corner, bringing the intended apartment into sight. She nervously adjusted the heft of her bag strap, consciously avoiding using her power to do so in case someone unseen happened to be watching. The acrid scent worsened as she approached the door and knocked, and she did her best to ignore it while hoping whoever was abusing their kitchen would give up and order take out instead.

After a minute’s wait with nobody answering, she frowned and checked for any new messages but found none. She knocked again, waited a few moments more, then called out, “Masuyo, are you there?”

“I’m… here,” came a faint reply.

Sabah tentatively twisted the knob of the door and found it unlocked. She slipped inside and shut the door behind her, choking a bit as the intensity of the smell worsened. Her classmate was sitting on her living room couch and did not look up as she entered, resolutely staring at the floor. Sabah briefly dipped into the small kitchenette on the left and saw the smell was coming from several blackened hunks of meat in the sink that were flaky despite being wet. “I, um, see you had some trouble with dinner.” Masuyo made a noise caught halfway between a bitter laugh and a distressed whine that left Sabah quite concerned. “I could make a call for takeout, if you’d like?”

“I… need to make a call.” Masuyo slumped forward, planting her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands. “I just… I don’t know if I should.”

“Okay?” Sabah moved from the kitchenette into the living room and noticed there was a frying pan and what looked like a business card on the carpet. “I’m getting the feeling something bad happened.”

The other girl huffed out the most depressed sounding laugh she had ever heard. “Yeah… I fucked it all up, Sabah, and I don’t know what to do.”

Whatever this was, it was clear their economics project would have to wait. “I’ll… just take a seat, shall I?” She deposited her bag on the floor and gently sat on the couch, consciously maintaining a respectful distance. “Would you like to talk about it?”

Masuyo pushed off her knees and bonelessly flopped backwards into the couch. “I do, but…” Her head twisted to face Sabah, whose heart sped up at the intensity of and proximity of those expressive, chocolate brown eyes. “It might be best if you didn’t get involved. The PRT are going to get involved one way or the other.”

“Oh? A cape’s involved?” Sabah mentally patted herself on the back for somehow keeping a level voice and neutral expression. There was no way Masuyo could have discovered she was Parian, and even if she had, there was no reason to involve the PRT. Everyone knew her cape identity was a legally registered rogue. “Must be quite the story. Is their power burning hamburgers?”

That startled a laugh out of Masuyo. “No, no. That was me. I might have dumped them on the burner, so I could threaten a cape with the skillet?”

Sabah blinked and double checked, but there was definitely no obvious damage to the apartment. I guess that’s why the frying pan is on the carpet, she thought. “If a cape barged into your apartment, then yes, you’re supposed to call the PRT.”

She ran her hands over her face with a sigh. “I know, and if you’d asked me earlier today what to do, then I wouldn’t have hesitated to say yes, but it’s… complicated.”

“How about you start from the beginning?”

“The beginning. Right. Well…” She hesitated for a moment before sighing again, seeming resigned. “Remember how I was late to class Tuesday? You asked why, and I told you about being my… cousin’s guardian now.”

She remembered. She remembered quite well. Despite being quite frazzled at the time, Masuyo had still managed to be distractingly attractive in her somewhat immodestly cut denim dress and rich, purple scarf. Even now, Sabah couldn’t help but note how cute Masuyo looked in her cream blouse with its peter pan collar despite the plain navy apron tied in place over it. Forcefully stopping those thoughts before they could get into dangerous territory, she answered, “Yes, I remember.”

“She’s… Complicated. I mean, I knew she was going to be complicated before I’d even met her, but every interaction has been like tip-toeing through a minefield with a crudely drawn map and no mine detector. There are so many sore points and off-limit topics, and I’ve been stuck trying to figure it out as I go.” She paused for a moment, and Sabah let her gather her thoughts. “She didn’t come home Monday night after her first day at school, and I couldn’t get in touch with her on the phone I gave her either. I tried the police, but they said she had to be missing for twenty-four hours first. I went to her school hoping they might know where she’d went, and she showed up shortly after I did.”

“What had happened?”

“She fed me some cock and bull story about ruining her phone and the paper with our address and my phone number by falling into the bay by accident and that she stayed the night with someone who saw what happened. I was so relieved she hadn’t been attacked by the Empire that I let it slide and hurried off to class. Lo and behold, I get a call from the school because she skipped the last half of the school day. I tried to ease into the topic that night, but we somehow got into a fight over money, and she left for hours before coming back looking like she’d gotten into a street fight. I decided to count my blessings that she’d even come home that time and let it go, and she goes to school the next day, yesterday, and… I don’t see her again until tonight. The school told me she didn’t attend today at all.”

It didn’t escape Sabah’s notice that this mystery cousin didn’t seem to be here now. “That’s awful. Is she okay?”

“She seemed okay at first, and I was afraid she’d scare off again if I approached the topic of where she’d been too quickly, so I tried to offer to make her some food, right? Well, she tells me she’s only here to get her stuff because she’s moving out. I tried to explain she can’t just do that, and then this guy comes in, and he’s obviously one of those monster capes. I, um… I freaked out, right? It’s scary enough having a cape just show up in my apartment, but he seemed to be with June, and I thought he might be mastering her.”

So that was the cousin’s name—June. Masuyo had mentioned the guardianship but not a name yet. She eyed the pan on the carpet once more. “So you threatened him with a presumably hot frying pan. What happened then?”

“I was trying to shepherd him out the door and over swung. Before I know it, June’s calling him her ‘teammate’ and is yelling at me for threatening him and calling him a monster. She finished packing her things then dropped that card and left.”

Sabah eyed the business card on the carpet. She stepped over and plucked it up, only to realize it wasn’t actually a business card. It was the shape and size of one, but it only bore a handwritten phone number and the name ‘June,’ which was underlined multiple times. Her gaze moved back to Masuyo, who had remained seated on the couch. “You said you needed to make a call. You’re debating whether to call the PRT… or to call her.”

Masuyo had been right—it might have been best to not get involved. It seemed unlikely the cape had been a master. Sabah didn’t follow the cape scene of Brockton Bay—actively avoided it, point in fact—but she knew enough. If the man had been a master, and Masuyo had threatened him, then he almost certainly would have had June attack her. Or he might have just mastered her as well. It was hard to be certain with powers, but it seemed more likely that he wasn’t a master. No, if Sabah was reading this right, then he was parahuman muscle for a gang. A gang June had in all likelihood joined. And now Masuyo was seemingly debating allegiances.

She should leave. She was under no obligation to stay, and it was abundantly clear no economics work was going to get done. It was the smart thing to do. Her business, her hopes and dreams—they could be ruined if she got associated with a gang. Or worse, as a parahuman associated with a gang.

“I have to call the PRT,” Masuyo said, shaking her head. “Social Services too. I just… I can already tell June will freak out. She won’t care that I have to, won’t understand the government will want to know where she is. She’ll see it as a betrayal.”

Sabah stared at the tears starting to carve their way down Masuyo’s face. She should leave. It was the smart thing to do. It was the right thing to do.

She looked down at the card in her hands. “What did the cape with her look like?”

Masuyo seemed caught off guard by the question. “Um. He, um, wore a hoodie with the hood pulled up with jeans. Street clothes. I wouldn’t have known he was a cape if it wasn’t for his skin. I could see through his skin, see his bones and organs.”

Sabah flopped back down onto the couch, feeling heavy. This was beyond stupid, and she should leave, but it was impossible to look at that hurt and not even try to help. She fished around in her bag and pulled out her laptop.

“What are you doing?

“There are lists of known capes and what cities they’re in. I’m hoping we can search the lists of Brockton Bay capes and figure out who this guy is.”

It took several minutes and some creative searching, but eventually Sabah found a promising wiki. “‘Gregor the Snail,’ active in Brockton Bay,” she read before passing her laptop for Masuyo to read. “It doesn’t look there are many good images of him, but could this be the guy who was with June?”

Masuyo clicked on the photo gallery and grimaced. “Yes. This is him.” She read further down. “It says he’s a mercenary?”

“You know as much as I do,” Sabah replied, shrugging helplessly.

Her eyes danced over the screen. “There’s speculation about exactly what he does, but nothing about possibly being a master.”

“Have you considered…”

“That June was with him willingly?” Masuyo finished before running a hand over her face and sighing, the sound bitter and not at all fitting her in Sabah’s opinion. “That’s what I’m afraid of. She has a record from when she lived in New York. Nothing formal, apparently, but Social Services mentioned she associated with known thieves. Questioned several times, but they never charged her with anything. Ever since she moved here, she’s been so focused on money. What if this Gregor character offered to pay her to be canon fodder for some job they’re running?”

“You knew all of that and still took her in?” Sabah asked in surprise.

“I’m all she has!” Masuyo exclaimed. “Riko, she’s… her mom. Was. She overdosed, and the father… is out of the picture. Riko’s parents are dead, and she was an only child. If I hadn’t stepped up, they’d have put her in the system like—” She winced and cut herself off. “I’m her family. It’s my job to take care of her, even if June thinks it isn’t.”

What had she been about to say? There were too many possibilities to be sure. “So let’s say you call her. What does that look like? How can you get her to see she shouldn’t associate with a criminal?”

“I don’t know,” she groaned, burying her head in her hands again. “I just don’t know. I don’t think it can be done. Every time I go over it in my head, every scenario, every hypothetical, she always ends up pissed off and stubbornly refusing to come home.”

Sabah forced herself to lay her hand on Masuyo’s. To be comforting. Only comforting. “It sounds to me like you know what you need to do.”

Masuyo’s eyes drifted over to the card still held in Sabah’s other hand. Slowly, almost cautiously, she reached over and took it back. She stared at it for a solid minute, long enough that Sabah had to fight hard to resist the urge to fidget, but eventually she turned to give her a grim smile. “I think I do. Thanks. I’ll text you later about our project, okay?”

She nodded, having known there was no way Masuyo would be in the right mindset for school matters tonight. “Sounds good.” She hesitated then added, “I hope everything works out. Let me know, okay?”

The grim smile on her friend’s face shifted into a more natural one. “Okay. I will.”

“Thank you for your patronage as always, Mrs. Čížek,” Sabah told her last customer for the evening, clasping the skirt of her costume and dipping into a well practiced, graceful curtsy. Had the woman not been a regular at the Dollhouse, Sabah certainly would have flubbed pronouncing the name, but she visited at least once a month like clockwork. It was difficult to not remember.

“The pleasure is all mine, Parian, but I must insist you call me Karla dear,” the older woman replied, clucking with mild disapproval. “There’s no need for such formality.”

A weary smile crossed Sabah’s face, safely hidden behind her porcelain doll face mask. “It is a failing of mine, I’m afraid,” she carefully replied, inclining her head. “I’ll endeavor to do better.” Perhaps there was a better way to handle customers trying to force a personal bond with her, but maintaining her distance had yet to fail. There were too many people in Brockton Bay, both locals and tourists alike, who wanted to get to know the Bay’s lone rogue—to see the ‘real’ side of her. Though it was true she wanted to unmask once she had reached real success, it was safer to keep her distance for now. She doubted the Empire would take kindly to a middle eastern cape operating a shop in the middle of their territory. They already put pressure on her to join, sending by members on occasion. Thankfully, the Protectorate and even New Wave had always been quick to respond.

A few more pleasantries were exchanged, but eventually Sabah politely escorted her to the door, unlocking it long enough to let her out. It was a bit early for most businesses to be closing, even for a Sunday, but Sabah had long since identified Sunday evenings as being nearly dead and shortened the hours to give herself more time to work on specialty commissions. She lowered the metal grate after closing the door behind the older customer, the grate more a formality than actual protection in a world where capes existed, and headed for the stairs in the back of the boutique. She kept stock and excess materials for the store in the basement, and though she did need to get started on a commission Medhall had made for a fundraising auction, she slipped up the stairs to her apartment to change first. Leaving her old, two bed dorm room had been a bit bittersweet, since she had grown to care about her roommate, but the convenience of living where she worked had been good for saving time as well as consolidating expenses.

Her phone pinged as she pulled off her wig of golden curls and mask, but she ignored it for the moment. It pinged again several times in short order, and she huffed with exasperation before hastening to hang up her dress. It pinged yet another time as she padded over to the dresser where she had left her phone to charge, picked it up, and unlocked it. She blinked in surprise when she saw the barrage of messages had come from Masuyo.

[Please call me ASAP]

[No wait, don’t call me. Can you come over?]

[Or should I come to your place?]

[Just remembered I don’t know where you live. Can you come over ASAP??]

Sabah stared at the chain of messages for a moment, debating how to respond. Masuyo coming here wasn’t happening—it would raise questions she wasn’t prepared to answer—but what was so important that she couldn’t discuss it over the phone? She worried her lip for a moment, thinking of the Medhall commission.

[i'll come over. leaving soon. text u when i'm there]

She quickly pulled on some casual clothes then removed her wig cap and the braces for her mask before critically examining her hair. It was a mess, naturally, but Masuyo had made this sound urgent. She ran a brush through her hair a few times to give her long, dark locks some semblance of order, then pulled it all back into a messy bun. It certainly wasn’t the sort of image she wanted to portray, especially to Masuyo, but she suspected her quick arrival would be appreciated more. She retrieved her hooded coat and purse then carefully made her way out to her clunker. A short, albeit frustrating drive later—C’mon, you hunk of junk, just keep it together one more day, and I swear I’ll take you to the shop tomorrow!—she reached Masuyo’s apartment building, turned off the car, and pulled out her phone to send the promised text.

Someone knocked on the window of her car, and she shrieked in surprise. Masuyo was standing by her car window and looking quite sheepish. Sabah twisted the hand crank for her window and gave the girl a baleful glare. “Do you know how many years you just scared off of my life?!”

“Sorry… I just couldn’t stand waiting upstairs. I was pacing so badly I think I might’ve worn a hole in the carpet if I didn’t leave.” She glanced over the rest of the car, which left Sabah abruptly self-conscious. She tried to keep it clean when she had the time, but between classes and running the Dollhouse, it seemed like she always had textbooks, fashion magazines, bolts of cloth, and other assorted bits and bobs floating about the vehicle. Masuyo blessedly didn’t comment on the mess but rather said, “C’mon, we should talk upstairs.”

Sabah nodded and rolled her window back up before following her crush inside. The journey upstairs was so uncomfortably quiet that Sabah wasn’t quite sure how she managed to avoid squirming or start forcing awkward small talk. Masuyo was wearing scrubs, and it was the first time Sabah had seen her in them. The look fit her, like she really belonged in the medical world. Eventually they reached their destination, and Masuyo beckoned Sabah in after unlocking the door leading into the apartment. Sabah examined the kitchenette and living room from the entryway and was pleased to note a distinct lack of burned, wet meat in the sink and pots and pans in odd locations. Masuyo’s laptop laid open on the couch, though it looked like it was locked. The sound of the deadbolt sliding into place behind her drew Sabah’s attention back towards the door. Masuyo was slumped against it and staring unseeing at the floor with visible nervousness.

Sabah quietly gulped. “So. Um. What did you want to talk about?”

Masuyo jumped. “Oh. Sorry, I’m just trying to find the right words, you know?”

“Is there… anything I can do to help?”

“Well, yes, I’m hoping so. That’s, um, why I asked you to come over.” She took a deep breath. “How do you… talk to someone you love about finding out they’re a cape?”

Sabah stared at her and, her voice dull with shock, replied, “What?”

Masuyo fidgeted, wringing her hands together a bit. “Right? That’s what I mean. There’s no good way to talk about it.”

Sabah was starting to sweat. She didn’t…? How could she have found out?! “Why… why are you asking me this?”

“Well, I mean…” Masuyo finally looked at her for the first time since she’d knocked on the window in the parking lot. She clearly struggled with words for a second, shrugged, then said, “It’s sort of… obvious? It wasn’t that hard for me to put the clues together.”

Sabah slumped against the wall and slid to the floor. She knows.

“Sabah?”

I tried so hard to keep it a secret. Was I really that easy to figure out?

Masuyo was kneeling beside her, worry etched on her face. “Sabah?! Oh god, I shouldn’t have said anything.”

Wait… ‘Someone you love?’ Sabah’s cheeks began to flush as that part of what she had said finally began to sink in.

“I shouldn’t have said anything,” Masuyo repeated, sounding defeated as she fell backwards from where she was kneeling and flopped into a sitting position. “I… I thought you knew, after… God, I’ve fucked it all up, haven’t I?”

“Did… Did you mean it?” Sabah whispered, simultaneously terrified and elated by what all this meant.

“Um… Yes?” The look of confusion crossing her face was painfully cute.

Sabah had several crushes growing up, but she had never worked up the courage to do anything about them. Not here, not in this city. She had tried dating boys a couple of times in high school, trying to feel something from them—anything from them. But they had never, ever felt the way she did when she looked at Brittney in math class. The way she did when she looked at Latonya in gym.

The way she did when she looked at Masuyo.

Is this real? I really don’t need to hide any more?

Masuyo leaned forward, obviously concerned. “Sabah…?”

Let it go.

“I like you too,” Sabah finally admitted, putting voice to her feelings for the first time as she reached up to cup Masuyo’s face and gently pulled her forward into a kiss.

For a brief, glorious moment, everything was finally right in the world. Then she realized Masuyo wasn’t kissing her back, and she broke it off. “Masuyo?”

The other girl was staring at her like she had never seen her before. “Sabah… What?”

It hit her like a ton of bricks. She wasn’t talking about me. “I’m so sorry. I’m… I need to go.”

Masuyo was still half leaning over her, and when she tried to push past and climb to her feet, her friend stubbornly remained in the way. “Please talk to me, Sabah.”

Sabah started to tremble. She had always hated confrontation. As a little girl, her parents had always thought of her as a ‘sensitive child,’ and though she had managed to get better with the minor, day-to-day stuff, she still struggled to stay calm when faced with any substantial conflict as an adult. It was the reason why she had never come out, and it was one of the reasons why she pushed back ‘coming out’ as a middle eastern cape until far off into the future. “Please.” Her voice cracked on that word, and it took everything she had in her to not break down on the spot. “I want to leave.”

Masuyo flinched and pulled back. Sabah unsteadily climbed to her feet and moved to the door. Her hand gripped the doorknob like it was a lifeline and started to turn.

“I’ve never kissed a girl before.”

She froze halfway through turning the knob. She knew she should leave, that she was only going to get hurt more. But there hadn’t been the expected hate or disgust in those words, and she couldn’t help the tiny flicker of hope that made in her heart. She chanced a look over her shoulder and saw Masuyo was still sitting on the ground. Her eyes were wide, and her hand was hovering in front of her face, her fingertips ghosting over her lips like she wasn’t sure if what had just happened was real.

“I’m, um… I don’t know what to say.”

She looked up and met Sabah’s gaze. It was hard to read her expression with all the emotions warring for dominance on her face. Confusion. Distress. Wonder. Worry was the most prevalent, and in recognizing that emotion, Sabah also recognized whom it was for. She let go of the doorknob. “It’s your cousin, right?”

Masuyo winced and looked away, the worry finally overcoming the rest of the emotions and reigning supreme. “That mercenary, Gregor the Snail… The team he’s on doesn’t use unpowered henchmen. They attacked an armored truck today in Providence, and there were two new capes with them.”

“And she was one of them? You’re sure?”

“There was a video uploaded. I wouldn’t have recognized her in costume, but her voice… It was a bit distorted, but the way she spoke, her hair, her body shape… It was her.”

What would she think, if she found out her cousin was a cape? Her mother, her aunt? But no, that wasn’t the space Masuyo was coming from. What if one of them had found out she was a cape, that she was Parian? That was the feeling Masuyo wanted to understand. She remembered all too well how disappointed her mother had been when she had left behind engineering for fashion, chasing after that feeling of control over her own life. She had tried to convince her it was a mistake, that Sabah was choosing the wrong path. And maybe it was, truth be told. Making the switch, she had felt a breath of new life and passion enter her life, but recently she had begun to feel like the world of fashion might not be the right path either. But even if fashion was wrong for her in the end, that didn’t mean engineering had been right. She would never regret leaving him and his attempts to control her behind.

“It’s about control.”

“Control?” Masuyo asked.

“You’re afraid she’s on the wrong path, that she’s going to get hurt. If not now, then in the future.”

“Of course I am! Wouldn’t you be?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t matter. ‘Every scenario.’ That’s what you said, right? Every scenario where you called her, you saw her refusing to come home. It’s because you’re trying to control her, to steer her towards what you see as the right path.”

“She’s fifteen! And even if she was an adult, joining mercenaries is a terrible idea!”

“Probably,” Sabah allowed, “but that’s not what you asked, and that’s not what matters. You wanted to know how to talk to her about it. What you were really asking was, ‘How do I convince her to not do this,’ and that’s exactly how you shouldn’t talk to her. Because from what you’ve told me, she’s not going to listen to you, not when all she sees is you trying to dictate what she can and can’t do. It doesn’t matter to her whether it’s what’s best for her.” She tentatively stepped back over to Masuyo and sat down on the floor once more. “She’s bound and determined to live her own life, so let her, but be there for her. If… when she falls, you’ll be ready to help. And maybe then she’ll accept it.”

“You’re… You’re talking about a hell of a leap of faith.”

Her eyes fell to the floor. “They don’t always work out.”

Masuyo shifted into her line of sight, and Sabah felt an arm wrap around her shoulders. “Maybe… They can sometimes?”

She leaned into the nook of the taller girl’s neck. Maybe. Let’s see where this path goes.

The moment was interrupted when Masuyo’s phone dinged, drawing her attention. “Sorry,” she mumbled as she adjusted her position to fish around in the pocket of her scrubs for the device. “Gotta check that. I’m keeping an eye on the thread about J—Oh geez, I guess I should use her cape name? What was it again? Oh, it looks like another… video…”

A look of dawning horror crossed Masuyo’s face as she trailed off, prompting Sabah to worriedly ask, “Masuyo? What’s wrong?”

Wordlessly, Masuyo tapped the phone screen to start the video, and Sabah glanced at the title. ‘New cape Meteor gets fucked up by Boudicca’?! Oh god…

Together they watched the short video in deadly silence, and the moment it was finished, Masuyo immediately pulled up the dialer app. Only two listings were in the speed dial: Sabah and June. Masuyo tapped the latter while scrambling to her feet and grabbing the keys she had abandoned on the kitchen counter. She abruptly turned towards Sabah, her eyes unsure.

“Go do what you need to do,” Sabah said as gently as she could. She forced her hands to not shake after watching the violence in that video. “I’ll be… be here if you need me.”

Masuyo’s expression shifted. She wasn’t smiling, there was no way she could be smiling at a time like this, but there was something about her gaze that still conveyed she was pleased. “You’re the best. We’ll talk later about… um, us. That’s a promise.”

Sabah smiled. It was a soft, somewhat wary thing, but she couldn’t help it all the same. Masuyo groaned when she got the voicemail again, hung up, then immediately redialed while running out the door.