(ACCIDENTAL VILLAINY) REFLECTIONS

Armsmaster had failed. There was no gentler word for it, no technical phrasing or bureaucratic language that could soften the truth. He had failed from the moment he wrote that first incomplete, misleading report, and every decision that followed had only compounded that mistake. Nothing about his handling of the situation had been done correctly. Nothing had been done well.

And now, the consequences had finally caught up to him.

He stood alone in his workshop, surrounded by silent tools and half-finished projects, the whirr of the base’s ventilation system the only sound that filled the space. Normally, this room brought him a measure of comfort, or at least quieted his thoughts and brought him focus. Tonight, it only made the weight on his shoulders feel heavier, as if the silence was a reminder of how badly things had gone wrong.

A Ward had attacked an unaffiliated parahuman without appropriate cause. A Ward had violated protocol, escalated needlessly, and ultimately died because of her own recklessness. That alone would have brought extraordinary scrutiny down upon the PRT. But the situation was much worse, because it all could have been avoided if he had simply done his job properly.

If he had made the effort to speak with the girl earlier, before Shadow Stalker had taken it upon herself to act.

If he had not allowed his own bias, stress, and exhaustion to push him into filing a sloppy, speculative report built on half-formed impressions and worst-case assumptions. 

If he had taken a moment to slow down, to rely on communication instead of reaction, and to remember that leadership required certainty and strict adherence to protocol.

If he had done any of those things, there was a very real possibility that none of this would have happened.

His failure had not directly caused the Ward’s death, but it had contributed. It created the conditions that allowed it to happen. It gave Shadow Stalker the freedom and confidence to act without oversight. It left the bug parahuman vulnerable, unvetted, and operating without any real support until the moment she was forced, in panic and self-defense, to kill someone who never should have been allowed to approach her in the first place.

And Piggot… Piggot had backed him. She had defended his decisions, supported his assessments, and trusted that he—with his reputation for consistency, obsession with excellence, and general reliability—would not lead her astray. She believed he was the one person in the building least likely to make such a mistake.

She had been wrong.

He already knew what was coming, because news traveled quickly within the PRT even when nothing had been formally announced. The fallout had begun before the official reports were even finalized. Renick had quietly stepped in as interim Director while the search began for someone suitable who could take over permanently, policies were being re-examined and rewritten from the ground up, and several departments had essentially been dismantled so that they could be rebuilt into something better and more accountable.

Piggot would not remain with the PRT when this was finished. Armsmaster had no illusions about that. She had taken the hit for him, knowingly or not, and she would go down for it. That truth settled heavily in his chest, creating a rare and unwelcome ache that lingered no matter how he tried to compartmentalize it.

He drew a slow breath in an attempt to steady himself. It accomplished very little.

This was a massive failure, his failure, and the system was moving to correct itself.

And him? He would not go to jail. He was too valuable for that, too deeply integrated into the Protectorate’s infrastructure, and too important in his field. Tinkers with stable mindsets and reliable track records were rare, and even with this mistake hanging over him, he remained an asset they had no interest in discarding.

But he would no longer be the leader of the Protectorate’s ENE team. That decision was final, and it had been delivered to him without ceremony. And Armsmaster would be forced to retire, officially and permanently, from the identity he had built piece by piece over so many years. He expected disappointment, anger, or some measure of grief.

Instead, in the quiet of his workshop, he found something he had not anticipated.

Relief.

He had never been a good leader. He had known that somewhere deep inside, even if he had never allowed himself to acknowledge it aloud. Miss Militia had always made far more sense for the role. She was patient, empathetic, and capable of guiding people in ways that were entirely foreign to him. She understood morale and communication. She understood nuance and emotion.

She understood people.

He did not, simple as that.

Apart from Dragon, who mirrored him in ways he valued more than he would ever admit and who understood not only his work but his thought processes, he had never been particularly skilled at forming connections. He did not read people well. He did not adapt quickly to emotional complexity, and he certainly did not thrive in administrative or interpersonal responsibilities.

He was a builder. A problem solver. A Tinker in every sense of the word. That had always been where his strengths lay.

Perhaps, he thought as he let his gaze drift across the workshop until it settled on the gutted remains of his halberd, this outcome was for the best after all. He would lose the title, the authority, and the public reputation that came with them. Yet in exchange, he would gain something far more suited for him.

He would have the time and freedom to focus on the only work that had ever made complete sense to him, the work that had never betrayed him, and the work he had always returned to regardless of circumstance.

His tinkering.

That, at least, was comforting.