Vain 1.2

Taylor woke to the sound of dogs barking.

It wasn’t an unusual sound, necessarily. Dogs barked. That was what dogs did. But Taylor didn’t have a dog. Her dad was allergic.

That thought, combined with the unfamiliar firmness of the bed underneath her, dragged her out of the empty sleep she had fallen into and deposited her back into the waking world.

She stared at the ceiling for a long moment, studying it with lazy eyes.

It was an unfamiliar ceiling. Industrial, with exposed pipes and water stains that had dried into strange patterns across the concrete. The bed beneath her was a mattress on the floor, shoved into the corner of a repurposed storage room. It was dark, but the door was cracked so Taylor could somewhat see.

The barking continued.

Taylor sat up slowly. She wasn’t entirely sure how she found herself in this situation. Much of last night was a blur. She remembered Lung, the cold ache of Despair on her face, and then... Talking. A voice. Tattletale’s voice.

“You’re tired, right? You probably shouldn’t go home like that.”

“You can crash with us.”

“Villains? Come on, we’re not that bad.”

“Just give us a chance.”

Taylor swung her legs over the side of the mattress and stood. She was still wearing the same clothes from the night before. Someone had brought her a change of clothes at some point, but she hadn’t bothered to put them on. They sat in the corner of the room, untouched.

The barking was coming from somewhere deeper in the building. Taylor followed it, her bare feet silent on the concrete floor. The Loft, she recalled someone calling it, was an open space converted from a warehouse or factory of some kind. Exposed brick walls, tall windows that had been boarded up, and an assortment of mismatched furniture scattered across the floor. It had the feel of a place that was being lived in, but only just barely.

Taylor passed through a doorway and found herself in a larger space. The barking was louder here, and she could hear the sounds of animals moving around, claws clicking against the floor.

She rounded a corner and stopped.

There was a girl kneeling on the floor in front of three metal bowls, tossing chunks of raw meat from a plastic bag. She was butch, with a stocky frame and short, choppy hair. Her face was set in a hard expression that softened only slightly when she looked down at the dogs.

Taylor didn’t recognize her, but she knew who she was regardless. Her frame and the way she handled her dogs gave her away. This was Bitch. Taylor wondered if she chose the name.

The girl didn’t look up when Taylor entered, but her shoulders tensed slightly, indicating she knew Taylor was there regardless.

“You’re up,” Bitch said. Taylor stood in the doorway, watching her, but didn’t respond. Her empty gaze tracked the movement of the dogs as they jostled for position around the bowls. They were hungry, eager, their emotions simple and direct in a way that human emotions never were.

It was almost peaceful.

“Don’t wanna talk?” Bitch said. She still wasn’t looking at Taylor.

“No.”

“Why?”

Taylor considered the question. It was simple enough, but the answer was complicated in ways she didn’t feel like explaining.

“Nothing to say.”

Bitch frowned and finally turned to her. “Everyone’s got something to say. You don’t like to talk?”

Taylor met her gaze. There was no challenge in it, no judgment. Just a straightforward question from someone who seemed rather straightforward herself.

“It’s easier not to,” Taylor said finally.

Bitch held her gaze. She was looking for something, but Taylor had no idea what she wanted.

“Lisa says you need help,” Bitch said.

Taylor was struck by the strangeness of the statement. There was no pity in it. It was just an observation, devoid of any sympathy or hidden meanings that Taylor had trouble understanding these days. It was refreshing.

“Lisa talks too much,” Taylor said.

Bitch nodded. “Yeah. She does.”

She turned back to the dogs, tossing another chunk of meat into the third bowl. The dogs were settling into their meal now, their earlier excitement mellowing as they chowed down. Bitch watched them with something that might have been affection, though it was hard to tell with her features set in that perpetual scowl.

“You gonna stand there all day?” Bitch asked.

Taylor hadn’t moved from the doorway. She wasn’t sure why. She guessed she just hadn’t felt the need to go anywhere else.

“No,” she said, and didn’t move.

Bitch glanced at her over her shoulder. One of the dogs, a terrier with a scared ear, looked up as well, regarding Taylor with eyes that were surprisingly intelligent.

“You can sit,” Bitch said. “Dogs don’t bother you if you don’t bother them.”

Taylor considered this. She didn’t want to sit, exactly, but she also didn’t want to go back to the empty room with its stained ceiling and too-firm mattress. She crossed to the wall opposite Bitch and slid down until she was sitting on the cold concrete, her knees drawn up to her chest.

The dogs ignored her. Bitch ignored her. The silence stretched between them.

It was nice, Taylor decided. Most people felt the need to fill silence with noise. Bitch didn’t. She simply existed in the space, tending to her animals, content to let the quiet be quiet.

Taylor watched the dogs eat.

~~~

Later that day, Taylor found herself sitting on the couch in the living room, staring at the television without really watching it.

The news station was running a segment about the upcoming mayoral election, something about polling numbers and campaign promises. Taylor let the words wash over her, unprocessed as she focused her thoughts inward.

She hadn’t hadn’t felt the desire to go home.

Home was a… complicated concept. There was the house itself, with its creaking floors and smell of must and old paper. There was her room with its narrow bed and desk covered in notebooks she no longer wrote in. And then there was her dad.

Thinking about her dad made something stir in the numbness. He would be worried. That was what he did, these days. Worry. Worry about his job, worry about the city, worry about his daughter who had come home different after her mother died and even more different after—

Taylor pushed the thought away before it could fully form.

Worry and work. That was all he seemed to do anymore. Work himself to exhaustion at the Docks, then come home and worry.

A spark of something flickered in her chest. It was small but hot, and Taylor recognized it immediately. Resentment. Unearned and unwanted, but there nonetheless.

She caught the emotion before it could grow, before it could simmer and spread and become something real. She took the feeling and pushed it down, deep into the crevices of her power where it would be safely stored away. The spark vanished into the dark, leaving nothing but numbness in its wake.

Numbness was better. Safer.

The television droned on. Something about the ABB and Lung. Taylor watched without blinking. Armsmaster took credit for Lung's defeat. Good for him.

Minutes passed, maybe hours, before the sound of the door opening broke through the haze in her mind.

Taylor glanced up from the television to find a smiling face peering at her from behind a box of pizza, bottlecap green eyes sparkling. Blonde curls bounced as Tattletale—or Lisa, as she insisted Taylor call her—kicked the door shut behind her.

At least four grocery bags were wrapped around her arm, but she didn’t seem to be having any trouble balancing them against the pizza box. She moved easily through the loft, pausing to grin down at Taylor as she passed the couch.

“You’re still here? I thought you’d have been long gone by now,” she said.

Taylor tilted her head. Was she supposed to be gone by now? She had been here for a while. Maybe Lisa expected her to leave once she woke up.

She began to rise from the couch, already turning where her shoes were so she could gather them and leave. As she did so, Lisa’s face twisted, and the smile became softer.

“I’m kidding,” she said, and there was something in her voice that Taylor couldn’t quite identify. “Sit back down. I brought lunch. Well, technically it’s dinner, but pizza is appropriate for any meal. That’s like the only thing Regent is right about.”

Taylor followed Lisa to the kitchen at the other girl’s behest, her sock-clad feet silent on the concrete floor. Lisa set the pizza box on the counter and began unpacking the grocery bags, and Taylor automatically moved to help.

“You don’t have to do that,” Lisa said, pulling out a carton of milk and reaching for the fridge. “I’ve got it.”

Taylor shrugged silently and continued anyway. It wasn’t about helping, exactly; it was just something to do. Something that filled the space between moments with motion and purpose, however small.

Lisa glanced at her, and Taylor watched her expression cycle through several emotions that she couldn’t quite read. After a moment, Lisa looked away, seemingly content to let it happen.

Taylor stood in front of the cabinet, debating where a pack of crackers went. She turned them over in her hands, looking at the box. There were several cabinets, and she had no idea which one was for snacks versus cooking supplies versus whatever else.

“Upper left side,” Lisa said, not looking up from the fridge. “Next to the cereal.”

Taylor placed the crackers in the cabinet and moved on to the next item. They made quick work of the groceries, Taylor working quickly to match the other girl’s casual pace. They finished fast enough that by the time Lisa actually opened the pizza box, the cheese was still melting under its own warmth.

Steam rose from the surface, carrying the smell of tomato sauce and melted mozzarella. Pineapple and ham sat in uneven patches across the top, glistening under the fluorescent lights. A Hawaiian pizza.

Before the Locker, Taylor would have had an opinion about that. She would have felt disgust, or at least mild revulsion at the concept of this pizza. She probably would have said something, made a face, expressed some form of preference.

But now, she reached for that disgust and found nothing. There was a flicker, somewhere deep, of the person she used to be, but she grabbed the emotion before it could register, pushing it down and out of view.

Lisa had paused with her own slice halfway to a plate. She stared at Taylor for a long moment, her face twisted in a manner that Taylor didn’t have the capacity to understand. When she spoke, her voice was soft and oddly apologetic.

“Sorry,” she said. “It’s the only pizza I know won’t get eaten. The guys hate Hawaiian.” She glanced at Taylor. “Don’t like pineapple?”

Taylor shrugged. “It’s the ham.”

She grabbed a slice anyway and bit into it. The taste was sweet and savory and a little too much. Taylor swallowed and made for another bite regardless.

~~~

The days blurred together.

Taylor went home that first night, slipping through the front door long after her father had gone to bed. She left a note on the kitchen counter, explaining where she was and that she was home, and went to bed.

And then, somehow, found her way back the next day.

She wasn’t sure what compelled her to go back. It was a weekend, the house was empty, and she found herself craving the easy calm she had experienced just... existing in the loft. Not having to worry about the emotions her life at home evoked. Not having to see the pity in her father’s eyes or hear the careful way he spoke to her.

She dropped in without announcing herself, and was met with a spot on the couch and a smile from Lisa. Soon enough, found herself becoming a regular fixture at the Undersiders’ lair.

That was who they were, she figured out soon after she returned home that first day. The Undersiders. Small-time. Thieves.

Villains.

She wondered, that first night, if she should turn them in. It would be the right thing to do. They were criminals, after all. But the thought felt distant, pondering at best. It didn’t carry any real weight or conviction.

As she continued visiting, as she became acquainted with the others—with Rachel, with Brian, and even Alec—the thoughts of turning them in slowly faded away. They weren’t bad people, at least not as far as she could tell. Rachel was blunt and aggressive, but she cared deeply for her dogs. Brian was reserved and seemed the responsible one. Alec was... Alec. Flippant and lazy and somehow endearing in his own strange way, even though he called her names sometimes.

And Lisa was... Taylor wasn’t sure who Lisa was. Despite the fact that she had been the one to invite Taylor into this world to begin with, the blonde was a mystery. She talked too much and asked too many questions and looked at Taylor like she was trying to solve a puzzle.

But she never pushed too hard. Never demanded that Taylor be something she wasn’t. Taylor appreciated that.

Soon enough, as the week wore on and turned into two weeks, then three, she found that the Undersiders were the only ones she could truly find herself relaxing around.

If she were willing to use the word after the incident, she might have even begun to call them friends.

~~~

Taylor sat on the couch, gently rubbing the head of Rachel’s dog, Brutus.

The Rottweiler was all muscle wrapped in coarse fur, but he lay contentedly in her lap, making low grumbling sounds as she scratched behind his ears. His eyes were half-closed in contentment, and Taylor could feel the stares of the other dogs nearby, watching with clear jealousy. They wanted the same attention, but Taylor only had two hands.

She looked up as someone entered the room and was surprised to see Alec wearing his costume minus the mask. The white and gray fabric was pulled tight across his chest, and his hair was slightly mussed, like he’d just woken up or didn’t care enough to brush it.

“Hey, dork,” he said, giving her a lazy wave as he crossed toward the kitchen.

Taylor nodded back. “What’s going on?”

Alex shrugged, “Robbing a bank.”

He said it like it was the most normal thing in the world, like he was commenting on the weather or asking what was for dinner. Taylor’s hand stilled on Brutus’s head as she stared at him, watching him adjust his collar with a blank expression.

Before she could respond, another figure emerged from the hallway behind Alec. A dark hand reached out and smacked the back of his head hard enough to make him wince.

“Ow! What the hell, man?”

Brian stepped into the room, his expression tight with irritation. He was also partially in costume, all dark leather and black denim, though his face was bereft of the motorcycle helmet.

“Don’t just blurt that out,” Brian hissed, his voice low. “We don’t talk about that shit in front of her.”

Taylor remained frozen, her hand still resting on Brutus’s fur. The dog shifted beneath her fingers, sensing the sudden tension in her body. She stared at the two of them, and the first time in a long time, a feeling slipped past Taylor’s tightly guarded seal on her emotions.

Worry.

It fully manifested before she had time to send it away, bringing with it all sorts of nasty thoughts that she couldn’t suppress quickly enough. What if something went wrong? What if someone got hurt? What if–

She tried to push the reaction down, but failed to do so before the worry had taken root. Now, the emotions were gone, but the dizzying train of thought remained

She didn’t know much about what the group did when they were in costume. They didn’t talk about it around her, and she didn’t ask, but she had picked up things here and there, from the news and overheard conversations and the odd occasion that one of them forgot she was even there and mentioned something about one of the jobs. And what stuck out to her most, was how careful they were about everything they did.

The Undersiders didn’t take big risks. They were hit-and-run specialists. Get in, grab what they were there for, and get out while making as little noise as possible. On top of that, they hit small targets, things that would pay well but wouldn’t bring down whoever they scorned right on top of their heads.

A bank robbery fit none of these criteria. It was high-profile, public, and, worst of all, noisy. It practically guaranteed a cape response, and outside of Rachel, not a single member of the team had a power built for actual fighting.

What if something happened to them?

The thought lingered, and Taylor found herself surprised by it. She hadn’t realized she’d grown to care. But there it was, sitting heavy in her chest alongside the worry that refused to be pushed down.

Brian was still glaring at Alec, his mouth open to say something else, but Taylor spoke before he could.

“I want to come.”

The room went still. Brian turned to look at her, his expression shifting from irritation to surprise. Alec raised an eyebrow, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. Behind them, Taylor could hear footsteps approaching. It was Lisa, drawn by the commotion. She hovered over Brian’s shoulder, staring at Taylor just as he did.

“What?” Brian asked.

Taylor met his gaze. “The bank job. I want to come.”

“You’re not a villain,” Brian said, his voice careful. “You don’t do this kind of thing.”

“I do now.”

Brian stared at her. Alec’s smirk had grown into a full grin. Taylor carefully didn’t look at Lisa, knowing that the girl was probably studying her like a specimen under a microscope.

“You don’t even know what we’re doing,” Brian tried. “You don’t know the plan, the risks—”

“Then tell me.”

Taylor’s voice was as flat and monotone as always, but there was something underneath it that gave Brian pause. She could see him searching for the right words, the right argument to make her see reason.

But there wasn’t one. Because Taylor had already made up her mind.