Stepping into the sterile room, Finn’s gaze trailed down from Lyra to all the medical equipment she was connected to.

The doctors had done all they could, and she would make a full recovery. Or so they said. Only time would tell for certain. He’d seen the wound up close, and even though he wasn’t an expert in human anatomy himself, it had looked serious.

He and Jack rounded the bed and unfolded two chairs to sit on. Neither of them spoke for the first minute or so, allowing Finn to settle on Lyra’s obscured facial features.

Due to the nature of this facility and the obvious demand for secrecy of its clientele, the staff couldn’t very well expose the secret identities of every patient, so they came up with small holographic projectors which automatically blurred out faces. While it wasn’t foolproof—not even close—it was a sign of goodwill, if nothing else.

Finn didn’t like the thought of Lyra’s personal life being affected by her Aegis career even when she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself. Let alone when she was suffering from a grievous wound.

It was already tiresome enough to avoid being seen in public with her. Having to go to their training spot with a mask on was a hassle, and though she knew they were only doing it to keep their identities safe, he knew it bothered her on some level. As Calliope, she might have been rising through the ranks, but Lyra didn’t have anyone to rely on.

And if her injury had made her more vulnerable to the hidden forces lurking in the periphery of her life…

Wouldn’t he be responsible? Yes, she had made her own decisions, but he was having a hard time just leaving her like this. Perhaps because he’d been treating her as a temporary colleague. Or, if he was being blunt, a means to an end; a pawn.

Despite knowing it was unrealistic to expect to never get hurt on the field, the least he could’ve managed was to get out safely after spending so long to prepare for this mission. Though he supposed the fact that they had succeeded at all was proof of their readiness on its own.

Still… What was he going to do now? As he pondered that question, his eyes drifted down to the wounded girl’s chest. It rose and fell slowly. He was reminded of that time they went to her house to recover, when she suddenly started talking in her sleep.

This time, however, she slumbered silently.

“We can’t stay here all night,” Jack said, breaking the silence.

Finn shifted his attention. His friend had taken a seat on the opposite side of the bed, and was now staring Finn down through the eyeholes of his balaclava, arms crossed.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” Finn replied, making no move to leave.

Jack sighed. “She’s gonna be fine, and it’s not like us being here would make a difference if this place was unreliable. We’ve already brought her here.”

Logically, Finn knew he was right. If the people here wanted to harm Lyra, they could have done so when they were literally cutting her body open earlier. And the whole reason this place was still running was precisely because they never mistreated their patients. Yet despite that, he still thought something was off about the way Jack kept prodding him to leave.

“Weren’t you the one who wanted me to be more involved with the people around me?” he asked.

“It’s not that I don’t appreciate your efforts to support Cal, but you can’t forget to look after yourself. With how fast you’ve been moving, it…” Jack paused. “Something like this was going to happen eventually. In fact, it already has. This is just the first time we didn’t have some kind of lucky break to immediately fix the problem for us.”

“Are you saying I should slow down?” Finn responded, his voice low.

“I’m saying you need to think about the consequences of our actions. She’s obviously out of commission for the time being, so you can’t take missions for now, let alone ones of this threat level.”

Beneath his mask, he frowned. They were just getting started on dealing with the real threats in the district, and now Jack wanted him to throw away all this momentum? He had to admit the argument made sense, but he couldn’t wait forever. They had already been slowing down for over a month in preparation for today.

“I’m not going to stop,” Finn ended up saying. He couldn’t afford to sit still for however long Lyra’s recovery period would end up taking, not when they couldn’t rely on Radi. With that woman, asking for healing either meant going on an unreasonably long waiting list, or they would have to approach her directly and beg for her services, which Finn wasn’t comfortable with at all. And even if he were, the DHD would no doubt try to use that as leverage to get Lyra to join the Junior Aces. The only reason she had healed them before was because they’d been on-site victims of an anomalous primebeast attack. Or so he thought. Regardless, they couldn’t realistically expect Lyra to magically have her injuries healed again.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Jack seemed to consider his answer for a moment before saying, “At least promise me you won’t do anything rash until tomorrow? Then we’ll talk about it more.”

“...Alright.”

“Don’t stay too late.” Jack got up and walked out of the room far more easily than Finn had been expecting. Perhaps because he realized neither of them were in the mood to argue, at the moment.

Now, Finn was left alone in this room with Lyra, or Calliope, the person who had been by his side for most of his hero days. His teammate.

His friend.

That thought made him pause. Had he really started thinking of her that way? After considering it for a moment, he realized he had. He wasn’t sure when, but at some point, he had acknowledged her as a friend—the first one since Jack, honestly.

Well, this was the friendly thing to do, wasn’t it? Being supportive or whatever? At least he had an idea of what would be going through his own head if he found himself in the same situation as her. He didn’t think he would be intensely relieved to see familiar faces. No, he would just be suspicious about his identity getting leaked, and probably search for a way to escape.

His eyes closed for a moment as he thought. With nothing else to do besides waiting and staring at a sleeping girl, Finn decided to browse the Aegis store.

None of the options available within his budget caught his attention for long. Some were interesting, but he was still inclined to save his credits until he had enough to buy one of the big purchases. Something that would truly get him to the next level.

The dilemma, as always, was whether to hold onto his credits so he would have more later, or to make a purchase now that would help him collect credits even faster in the future.

Given his current circumstances, the former seemed like a better choice because he wouldn’t be as effective on the field without Lyra, meaning his progress was going to be slower either way. Until she recovered.

To that end, he considered buying her access to a healer, but there weren’t any in this district, and the ones he could find outside of that only healed in their own location or charged extra to travel to remote places. And again, just like with the DHD’s healers, there was usually a waiting list.

Hypothetically, though, if he could afford to get her healed, that would just put them in the same situation they had been in today.

No, they weren’t strong enough. Just like when the first real threat showed up before, they could do nothing but run and hope for the best. Clearly, that wasn’t sustainable.

They needed to prepare more. They needed to train harder. They needed to be better.

Did that mean he had to quit missions altogether while waiting for his partner to get back on her feet? Definitely not, but he was still aware of the risks.

His first encounter with the Venin had been pure coincidence; he’d just happened to be nearby when one of their goons tried to kill an innocent bystander. But this time, they had infiltrated their base and stolen a valuable possession from them. Chances were, they would see that as a declaration of war.

So if he went out there again, he would have one of the two biggest gangs in the district hunting for him. Or they would simply put up a bounty for him, he wasn’t clear on the details of how villains who mattered actually operated. He rarely looked into it.

Omega was an exception, of course. But his confrontation with that monster was still far away.

At length, as he pondered the many potential outcomes of the future, Lyra stirred. She groaned slightly, and he used his power to black out any places from which they could be watched, as well as the holograph covering her face. She wasn’t actually wearing the projector, so his power worked on it just fine. Although he’d always thought that particular limitation was fairly arbitrary.

Her eyes opened groggily, and after a few blinks, they widened a fraction upon spotting him.

“We got the credits,” Finn informed her. No matter what happened, it would be reassuring to hear it wasn’t for nothing. Wouldn’t it?

Lyra opened her mouth, but whatever she croaked at him was unintelligible. She looked down at the blanket she was under and tried to get up, then immediately gave up with a cringe.

“Stop moving around,” he said.

Her eyes slid shut as she laid back down, for so long that Finn thought she’d fallen asleep again, before she said, “How… long since…?”

He could hear that vibrating filter over her voice, the one she used whenever she was talking to anyone not on their team as Calliope. But in this case, she was using her power to make her weak voice understandable to him. Finn was impressed she had the presence of mind to do that, currently.

“It’s been a few hours,” he answered. Maybe he should’ve just led with that.

She stared up at the ceiling. “Really hurts…”

“...It looked painful.” Finn didn’t know what else to say to that.

To his surprise, Lyra actually breathed a laugh at that, followed by a wince. “Was I heavy?” she asked.

Finn blinked, though she obviously couldn’t see that. What kind of question…? “Not really. I’ve carried you before.”

“Oh yeah,” was all she replied with.

The conversation stalled at that moment, perhaps because Lyra was still tired. As for Finn, he never spoke to Lyra just because. Any time they talked about personal questions, it was Lyra who initiated them. If he addressed her of his own volition, it was about their hero life.

But that level of professional distance had gone out the window after that primebeast attack, and if she was a friend, he should at least make himself available to her when she needed him.

“You can leave me here,” she said after a minute or so.

“When you recover, are you going back out there with me?” he asked. It was an important question he wanted an answer to, even if he had already decided to help her.

The young heroine nodded wearily. “Of course… owe you too much,” she mumbled.

Owed him? As far as he was concerned, friends didn’t keep track of debts, but he wasn’t going to say that out loud.

He got up to leave, and said, “If something goes wrong, send me a message.”

This time, Lyra genuinely didn’t respond, having succumbed to sleep. Finn released his power on the projector, disguising her face once more, and returned the room to its usual color.

Silently leaving the building, he wondered how long it would take before their next high-profile job. Because when that time came, things would be different.

He was going to make sure of it.