"What the fuck did you do to my sister, you piece of shit?"

"...Hello, Amy," I said, looking up from my slice of shitty school cafeteria pizza. "Can we discuss whatever grievances you have with me in a more private setting?" Talking all fancy-like to try and defuse her anger wasn't super likely to work, but hey, worth a shot.

"Here's fine," Amy said, slamming her palm down on the table with a surprising amount of force for such a mousy-looking wisp of a girl. "Start talking."

"Al diablo esto, me voi," Carlos said in quick and quiet Spanish as he stood up, taking his tray with him. "La Virgen que te ayude, hermano; lo necesitaras."

"Yeah, uh... what he said," Dennis said uneasily, following after Carlos.

"...Well?" Amy asked, staring at Dean.

"I'm used to the sound of you yelling," Dean said dryly. "Go on ahead."

Amy sighed and rolled her eyes, then turned to face me.

"So I'm a healer," I said, before she could start.

"...Oh," Amy said quietly, instead of launching into her tirade. She knew damn well what I meant by that.

"What I did to her was... tough love," I said. "A stern and thorough talking to, which she seems to be coming around to agreeing on, but... which she really, really did not want to agree with."

"Wait, what?" Dean asked.

"Nothing," Amy said, eyes going wide.

"Don't worry about it," I said, more calmly. "All water under the bridge. She's gonna be a little out of it for a little while; changes in perspective tend to do that to a person. And..." I hummed quietly. "...Amy, if you really want to know about it, ask Vicky about it, and make sure to call her 'Hermanita.'"

"You know she's older than you, right?" Dean asked.

"I'm still bigger than her," I said.

"...I'm sorry I blew up at you," Amy said quietly, looking intensely at the table, her frizzy, curly hair starting to droop in front of her face.

"Eh," I said with a shrug. "Water under the bridge. I can forgive a lot, when it's directed at me. Just, uh... I do ask that you extend me the same courtesy when Vicky tells you the story, because it is entirely possible I will not survive her telling of it smelling like roses."

Amy nodded, and then... turned and walked away from me.

"I swear, there is something wrong with that girl," Dean muttered. "I've told you I can see emotions, right? Well, her mood swings on a fucking dime, I swear."

"Maybe one day they'll find superheroes who are functional enough to raise a child without horribly traumatizing them, but they sure hadn't found 'em yet when Vicky and Amy were born," I said dryly. "I'd suggest maybe cutting them a little slack. The myth that Gen 2s have it easier is just that- a myth."

"Mm."

Dean sighed.

"...Tell me what happened, please."

"So Vicky has a habit of going a bit too far in her vigilante justice, and ends up needing to call in a healer to fix the Nazi she just broke. That healer used to be Amy, but then, yesterday, it was me. And since my power can raise the dead... I cut his throat first, to make a rhetorical point about the logical end state of her behavior, then brought him back to life without his memories of us fucking him up, and handed him over to the cops along with eyewitness testimony and signed affidavits about what specifically he'd done that had pissed Vicky off so much."

Dean pinched the bridge of his nose, and groaned.

"What the fuck," Dean began, "is wrong with that girl? We fucking talked about this sort of thing! We still talk about it! And she's still been doing it, and didn't even tell me?!"

"The answer to 'what is wrong with her' is pretty straightforward, honestly," I said. "She has terminal cop-brain from being raised by superheroes, and therefore has the black-and-white moral compass of a six year old that sorts people into Good Heroes Who Can Do No Wrong, Bad Criminals Who You Can And Should Hurt Without Remorse, and set dressing who matter only insofar as they contextualize the former two categories of people."

Dean blinked a few times.

"...Ah," he said. "Fuck."

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"Were you... not fully aware of this?" I asked, frowning. "Dean. Dean, please tell me you didn't start dating your girlfriend on the premise of 'I can fix her' and are only just now realizing how badly you misdiagnosed the problem."

"I thought she just had impulse control issues," Dean said, burying his face in his palms.

"I mean, she does, but the root of the problem is that she was raised to see violence as a valid problem-solving tool, and also to be very good at it," I said. "I... think teaching her to value due process and the rule of law is a good way to make most of that problem go away? But, well, 'rule of law' isn't axiomatically good, and there's gonna come a time when the law conflicts with what's right, and she may well end up choosing 'legal' over 'moral.'"

"Fuck a duck," Dean continued, showing very little sign he'd actually heard what I'd just said.

I put a firm hand on his shoulder and shook him once, to make sure I had his attention.

"Dean, I'm gonna have to ask you to think about this before you do anything rash," I said. "Take a week to think, okay? And... Talk to Vicky before that week is up, okay? Don't just stew on your own and work yourself up, okay?"

"...No promises," he muttered darkly.

---

"Please give me some good news, Lisa," I said as I walked into her apartment, where she was eating Chinese takeout with an oddly familiar-looking elf.

"We got sesame chicken for you," Lisa said, gesturing at an untouched box. "I hear it's your favorite?"

"...I mean, that's not bad news, but you know what I mean, right?" I asked, opening up the white cardboard box and grabbing a pair of chopsticks.

"Yeah, I know, I know," Lisa said. "Fun fact, Thomas Calvert has documentation proving the identities of every supervillain in this town, and if he goes to trial, that will enter the record as evidence."

"Mm."

"Which is a bad thing, because all of those villains are going to lose their shit about being outed," Lisa continued, "and a lot of people are going to die."

"Unless Magpie gets to the villains first," the elf added.

"Okay, maybe, but Magpie isn't here," Lisa said. "She's off in Europe killing the Nazis over there. She might come here, but she might not, and we can't rely on her swooping in and solving all our problems for us."

"Fair enough," the elf said. "What about having the Red Hand kill all the villains first?"

"I just had the latest in an unpleasant series of arguments about the ethics of punitive justice and capital punishment," I said wearily. "Also, while I am not a lawyer, there is a difference between the court record and the public record. It is quite likely that the judge will arrange for a private trial so that evidence in the court record is not disclosed to the public, and I would much rather hear how much evidence you've gathered and how likely it is to hold up in court, not your blood-soaked daydreams of righteous slaughter on behalf of the defenseless lambs you imagine the general public to be. So. Give me some good news."

"Financial records proving that money from Calvert's construction company has been embezzled, laundered, and used to hire mercenaries, many of whom have active warrants out for their arrest," the elf said. "Also, written records of Calvert as Coil ordering those mercenaries to do a number of very illegal things, and a few more pieces of evidence that link Coil to other crimes- purchase of black-market Tinkertech weapons, kidnapping, and everything he ordered the Undersiders to do."

"Hiiiii," Lisa added, as if I couldn't figure out where the evidence about her old villain team having worked for Coil could've possibly come from.

"There we go," I said. "Now, do we have any evidence of who Coil's moles in the PRT are?"

"Some, but not a comprehensive list yet," the elf said. Fuck, what was her name again? Carbon? No... oh, Clover, that's it.

"Well, get me that list, please," I said. "I'm gonna want that in hand if I'm going to be bringing all this to Director Piggot."

"You really wanna deal with that cast-iron bitch?" Clover asked. "Brandish isn't likely to be that much more agreeable, but a blonde milf is gonna be easier on the eyes."

"I'm going to be perfectly honest with you," I said. "The fact that I even considered going to Brandish with this instead of Director Piggot is because I wanted to humor my friend. Carol Dallon is some random-ass lawyer with delusions of grandeur, and Director Piggot is a law enforcement officer who is... not quite as bad as she could be, and should be downright tolerable with a little basic professionalism."

"I've never met either of them, I can't really tell you how good your assessment is on a personal level," Lisa admitted. "But on an operational level, I'm pretty sure taking it to the top of the PRT is a good idea, especially since we've got evidence that Calvert actively wants her dead so he can take her job. Not like she's gonna be unmotivated about this."

"That too," I said. "Now... Clover-"

"Hey, you remember my name."

"-how quickly can you get me a comprehensive list of moles?"

"Twenty four hours at the longest."

"Good. I'm gonna see about getting a meeting with Director Piggot scheduled; fuck knows what her schedule is like, but I doubt it'll be before you can get me that evidence. Well, ladies, keep up the good work, and thanks for the chicken."

With that, I turned around and walked back out.