Dan's next conversation with Abby was short and sweet.

"How'd it go?" she asked.

"She's fuckin' creepy," he replied, his voice shaking slightly. "I think it's finally time to call your grandma."

"Background check?"

"Background check."

Information was power, and Dan had far too little of both.

Matilda had him... concerned. As a seasoned professional with enough acclaim to rub shoulders with veteran police officers, there was a certain amount of expectation involved regarding her skills and knowledge. That was fine, Dan could handle smart, talented people.

He hadn't expected her to know the classified history of his faux-upgrade. Maybe he should have. It was part of her job, after all, to understand upgrades. It wasn't all that far-fetched for her to have contacts within the upgrade industry. It was odd that she happened to know about his specific upgrade, seeing as it was both rare and unpopular, but that wasn't what had aroused his suspicions.

"You'll want for power eventually. Your kind always do!"

It was a hint. Dan was not the first natural power that she'd worked with. It wasn't a slip of the tongue, no matter how impassioned it had been. It was a hook, trying to reel him in. The phrasing, as inflammatory as it sounded to his ear, suggested something entirely different in this new world. It was a statement of widely acknowledged fact. A truth of the world, not an insult.

Beyond that, it was a message.

"You are not alone."

It might have been tempting, if Dan wasn't who he was.

Natural powers were vanishingly rare. Those 'open' about their status were required to register with the government, and were placed on watch lists for the rest of their lives. Lonely lives, at that. Being on a watch list was never a good conversation starter.

The country at large distrusted natural powers. This bias was not a subtle one. Film, literature, video games, natural powers were portrayed as the enemy. It wasn't even loathing, so much as regretful shunning. Natural powers were uncontrollable, unstable, dangerous. It wasn't the person's fault; a Natural couldn't help what they had become. The person was to be pitied, the power, to be avoided, or destroyed.

Men like Gregoir were seen as the exception, rather than the rule. A man whose natural power was, on its face, simple and harmless. A man accepted by the public, and placed in a role of respect and authority. That the man himself was weirdly, compellingly charismatic only helped cement his place as an oddity. A Natural should be divorced from society, for their own good and for the good of others. They couldn't help but be a threat.

Matilda had tried to play on this lonely insecurity. In her eyes, Dan should have suffered from a lifetime of self-loathing. He should have been afraid of his own abilities, cowering from experimentation, struggling to fit in. Shouldn't he want a place to grow, safe with his peers? A place where he could gain control over this curse?

How unfortunate that he saw his power as the greatest thing since sliced bread. He hadn't even caught her hidden meaning until he was back home.

Still, the blatant manipulation reeked of a more sinister purpose.

"The offer could still be genuine," Abby postulated quietly, some time after being caught up on Dan's encounter. Her words were clearly half-hearted, playing Devil's advocate for the sake of being thorough.

The pair were relaxing on Abby's couch, inside the large condo she had rented for her stay in Austin, discussing their options. Dan studied his girlfriend, noting her slightly subdued posture. It had been her idea to further involve themselves with Matilda, and though Dan had elected to go against her advice, she was clearly suffering guilt from what might have been.

Dan pulled her closer to him, grinning as she burrowed into his side. It wouldn't hurt to give her some reassurance. Nothing was certain, yet.

"Maybe," he conceded easily. "I could be reading too much into it."

"But you don't think so," Abby mumbled into his shoulder.

"But I don't think so," he agreed, tucking her head beneath his chin.

Stolen story; please report.

Abby sighed, the sound caught somewhere between regret and embarrassment. "Yeah, me neither."

"So some creepy weirdo is interested in me," Dan summarized dryly. "Fantastic."

"What else is new?" Abby grumbled, shifting onto her back. Her head ended up in Dan's lap, looking up at his face. "It'll take a while to investigate her, even with Mama Ana pulling the strings. How are you gonna handle the crazy woman in the meantime?"

Dan leaned back with a groan. "It would be great if I could just ignore her, but somehow I don't see that happening."

"You should be so lucky," Abby scoffed. Her eyes found his, all sense of meekness gone. "Whatever comes," she promised, "we'll deal with it together."

Dan's smile softened, and his hand found hers. "None of that, now. She's not gonna go blabbing my secrets, and even if she does, she's got no proof. Who would even listen?"

"All it takes is for the wrong person to hear it and get curious," Abby grumped, tightening her grip on him. "Even if nothing comes of it, the idea gets planted. I don't like it."

"There's nothing we can do about it," Dan replied. His words were less a comfort than a statement of fact. "I messed up, and she caught me. I just have to learn from it."

It was fortunate, in a strange way, that he'd been caught by Matilda. Had someone more law-inclined known the history behind his upgrade, had they noticed the mistakes he was making, things could've gone way worse. As it was, Dan was fairly certain that the older woman was genuinely interested in his power. He doubted that she'd immediately try to sabotage his life. Not while diplomacy was on the table.

He found it strange that he didn't feel more afraid. It was entirely possible that this woman could uproot his life in a fit of pique. The only thing keeping him sane were his own instincts, his read of the woman's behavior. She felt like a scholar, at heart. Akin to Marcus. Without a more solid understanding of Dan's power, she wouldn't act against him. It would be a self-defeating exercise.

He was getting really good at understanding crazy people. Boy was that a depressing thought.

Regardless, he wasn't in the habit of worrying on things he couldn't change. He was right or he was wrong, only time would tell. In the meantime, he needed to get a grip on his public displays of power. Blind teleportation was suddenly a lot less appealing in front of strangers. There was no helping it around his friends; they clearly had no concerns about it, nor did they have a reason to look any deeper. Even after pulling out all his tricks in his spar with Abby, he had only received boisterous praise from Gregoir, without a drop of confusion or skepticism.

Though, Dan once again questioned the sanity of befriending so many cops. Nothing for it now, he supposed, but damn had that been a stupid idea at the time. He'd been remarkably blasé about his own background, trusting his forged identity to hold up. It had gotten him to where he was, so he didn't regret it, but things would likely need to change.

Marcus had created Dan's cover story, and it had held up admirably thus far. It might, even, hold up for the foreseeable future. Dan just didn't see a need to take the chance. Abby was right about that much: It only took one person getting curious, or thinking something is off, to blow up his peaceful life. It took only one person to notice the same thing that Matilda had.

Dan wasn't angry that Marcus had missed that particular detail, assuming it was true. The old man was far removed from Earth, and only peripherally kept up with the latest advancements, to say nothing of buried mistakes. The only reason he'd even remembered the short-hop is that teleportation was such a rare phenomenon. As soon as the short-hop's limitations had been revealed, Marcus had immediately lost interest in it. He wouldn't have known that Dan's power could not pass for a mutated short-hop when put under extreme scrutiny.

But that was the situation he'd found himself in.

So, either his cover story needed adjusting, or his behavior needed adjusting. The former was unlikely to work, as Dan had been living by it for over half a year, and every single acquaintance 'knew' that he was a mutate. The latter was likely to work, but would draw questions from said acquaintances regarding his sudden reluctance to use his power. So, actually, it wouldn't.

Shit.

Abby's face peered up at his. "Whatcha' thinkin' about?"

"My power is going to be a problem," Dan informed her solemnly. "I obviously can't keep using it like I have been, but stopping would bring a lot of questions."

"From your friends?" Abby asked, cocking her head as much as she was able. Her dark hair trailed across the couch in thick tresses.

"I'm not sure if you've noticed," Dan began, running his free hand over her head, "but I tend to teleport everywhere."

"I have noticed, actually," she murmured, closing her eyes. "Lazy bum."

Dan began to massage her forehead, rubbing slow circles into her temples. She groaned at the pressure, pushing into his hand. He chuckled to himself, whispering, "You're one to talk."

"It'll be fine," she mumbled. "They like you too much to think about it. You don't have to change anything."

Dan smiled at the thought. He did have friends, and they did like him enough to ignore any residual weirdness lingering around him. That wasn't something he could've said a year ago.

And then the smile dropped.

"It's not just them," he said with a sigh. "This affects my future job, too. My... ability to help." His hand paused, as he realized just how many problems had cropped up as a result of this. His power was suddenly a lot less viable in disaster relief. At least, if he limited himself to what should be possible. The techniques he'd been developing, the myriad uses of his veil, he would have to hide all of that, forever. Constantly paranoid that someone would notice, and call him out on it. He couldn't— He didn't want that to be his future.

Abby pushed back into his hand with a whining protest. Dan couldn't fight the soft smile that emerged on his face, and his grim mood faded away. His hand moved of its own accord, resuming the gentle massage.

"Bein' a dummy, Danny," Abby grumbled up at him. Her eyes opened, bright and piercing. "There's always a solution! We just have to think of it! No need to get grumpy and sad."

He stared down at her for a moment, before quickly leaning down to steal a kiss.

"You're one to talk," he repeated, watching her face as it reddened.

She flailed, he dodged, and they tumbled off the couch in a tangle of limbs.