Chapter Text
No matter what Scar said, Grian actually did know what he was doing. Sure, he wasn't great at actually doing the things, but he did know what was going on.
Case in point, he knew very well that he had been doing a routine check up on the most dense area of the city and therefore the most crime ridden section, and he also knew very well that he was surrounded by heroes on a rooftop and was going to have to fight his way out. He also knew that he was still recovering from that stab wound to his side that Scar hadn't fully been able to heal, and he knew that there was now a new bullet wound in his shoulder from one of Chromia's sniper rifles.
So yeah. He knew what he was doing. He just wasn't the best at the doing part.
"Xelqua, put down the knife. You're under arrest." Dawn's voice rang out clear and true over Grian's racing thoughts. He could already see the light pooling in her hands, ready to direct at him and knock him down. He found that rather unfair, seeing as he was already injured and Chromia already had his gun leveled at him from his higher vantage point, ready to shoot him again.
"I'm not the biggest fan of prison." He shook his head. "I don't think I will."
"Come on." Dawn rolled her eyes. "Put down the knife. You're already hurt, we have you surrounded, you can't fight your way out of this one. Not without getting seriously hurt."
"I mean, I'm hurt already, like you said." Grian shrugged, then immediately winced as the bullet in his shoulder was jostled. "Might as well go all the way."
"I'll shoot it out of your hand if you don't put it down." Chromia stated, and Grian wrinkled his nose.
"You're mean."
"No, we're just following the law." Dawn replied easily. "Put down the knife."
Grian looked between the two of them, then glanced over his shoulder at where Blaze was standing, face tense, hands balled into fists. Blaze had been more sympathetic towards vigilantes lately, and even a few minor villains had gotten away thanks to him. Grian wasn't exactly a minor villain, but he could probably sneak away through his side. That was, if he could get out before Chromia filled him with bullets.
Yeah, he was definitely in trouble here.
With a sigh, he pressed the small panic button hidden on his wrist to alert Scar. He did his best to move slowly and carefully, and he thought that he'd done a pretty good job of it, but Chromia apparently didn't think the same and Grian got a second bullet to the hand. The knife he had been clutching clattered to the floor and he let out a sharp bark of pain.
"Dude? What the heck?"
Chromia didn't even blink. "You were reaching for something. Had to make sure you didn't manage it."
"I had an itch." Grian replied, biting the inside of cheek as pain radiated out from the two bullet points in his flesh. "You heroes overreact to everything."
"I don't think shooting one of the largest villains in the city counts as overreacting." Dawn twisted a pair of handcuffs out of the light in her hands, stepping towards him. "Now, hold out your hands. Or…what's left of them."
That seemed kind of harsh. The hand that Chromia had shot wasn't that badly mangled. Sure, it would probably take a lot of healing, but it was fine! It was fine. Everything was fine.
Instead of holding out his hands to be arrested like a good little villain, Grian instead backed away, raising his wings around him to make himself look bigger. He didn't have enough energy to smite any of them, but he could at least scare them. Except—nope, there were two more bullet holes in his wings now. He hissed in pain, wings flopping to the ground around him.
"You have a serious problem." He spat towards Chromia. "Stop shooting me."
"Stop being a threat." Chromia replied easily. "Then maybe I'll stop shooting you."
"You suck." Grian took a step backwards, hoping that Blaze hadn't moved forward. He really didn't want to deal with burns on top of the many bullet wounds he had gotten from Chromia's trigger-happy tendencies.
"Xelqua." Dawn said sharply, and this time, there was no room for banter in her tone. "Stop fighting. Surrender. You can't fight."
"Watch me." Grian bit out, though he had no weapon, no wings, and no way out.
"Alright then, you asked for this." Dawn looked up to Chromia. "Toss it."
Well that wasn't good. Grian had heard rumors that Chromia had been back in the lab, mixing up new potions to cause mass destruction—sorry, to enforce peace—to those who went against his will. He had been on the receiving of Chromia's potions once before, back when they hadn't been deemed too inhumane by the government yet, and it had been one of the worst experiences of his life. The nausea had set in almost immediately, leaving him unable to fight and barely able to stand. It was only through some kind of miracle that he was able to stagger away from the heroes without being caught, and Scar had found him vomiting in a corner three hours later, having tracked him all over town through his emergency beacon. He had felt sick for the next several days, though he was well enough to work again about 24 hours after the initial exposure.
He had no idea what this one would do. He lurched backwards, but he was far too late, pain clouding his reflexes. A glass bottle shattered against his chest, splattering him with murky green liquid, and he stared down at it for a long moment before looking back up at Chromia.
"Rude."
He then proceeded to collapse in a heap on the rooftop as a rush of fatigue and overwhelming nausea washed over him. If he hadn't already been injured, he probably would have been able to stay on his feet, but the combined forces of the four bullet wounds and the potion was enough to bring him down without much of a fight. The pain was only dialed up by his impact with the roof, and he let out a low groan as the nausea increased alongside it.
"We warned you." Dawn said unsympathetically. "Call Headquarters, let them know we finally caught him."
Grian managed to lift his head just enough to see her approaching him, handcuffs at the ready. That wasn't great. The last time they had locked him up, it had taken him three years to get away, and that was only because Scar was there with him. Not that the heroes knew that, but still. He didn't want to go back to the Vault.
He probably should have listened to Scar when he told him not to go out with his half healed stab wound.
Thump.
Boots hitting the roof only a short distance away from him, worn by someone capable. Someone confident.
"Who the heck are you?" Dawn asked incredulously.
"Aww, you don't remember me?"
Scar.
A quiet sob of relief worked its way out of Grian's throat. Scar was here. Scar had seen his panic button and had come to his rescue. Scar would be able to take care of things from here.
"...you're one of the people from the Vault breakout." Chromia said slowly, as though he was finally putting the pieces together.
The grin was audible in Scar's voice. "That's right. 11 years you had me locked up in there, did you know that?"
"When the break out happened, we had to research all of the escapees, so...yeah." Dawn sounded unsettled now. Maybe even afraid. "You're Scar. Scar Thymes."
"In the flesh." Scar hummed, and a moment later, a hand gently settled atop Grian's hair, fingers lightly carding through it. Grian felt himself go limp in the touch, the exhaustion and nausea from Chromia's potions overwhelming any sense of awareness that he had. A moment later, the pain lifted slightly from the bullet wounds, fading from an aggressive sharp agony to a light throbbing.
"Go ahead G, get some rest. I'll take care of this." Scar said gently, and Grian didn't waste another second. He was asleep before he heard Scar's next words.
-
Scar stood slowly, wiping the green potion residue from his hand onto his pants and turning to face the two heroes staring him down. He wasn't too worried about the one behind him. He would be able to take care of him once he finished up with the ones in front of him.
"What do you want?" Dawn asked, the eyes of her mask narrowing.
"Me?" Scar moved to stand so that he had one foot on either side of Grian, sheltering him from anything the heroes might try. "Oh, nothing much. I'd just like to get my buddy out of here."
"Yeah right." Chromia scoffed. "You have death hands. You broke out of the Vault."
"Would you believe it if I told you that a power doesn't mean whether or not someone is good?" Scar cracked his knuckles, taking a moment to relish the way both of the heroes flinched. "I was locked up when I was fifteen just because there was a chance I could hurt someone. A chance that I would turn evil."
"It was a risk we couldn't take." Chromia pushed. "You were a threat we couldn't let escalate."
"I wanted to be a doctor, did you know that?" Scar said thoughtfully. "It was my dream since I found out I could heal people. Did they put that in my file?"
"What is this, a monologue? I thought supervillains were supposed to be smarter than that." Dawn said disdainfully.
Scar frowned, gesturing at her with a vague wave of his hand. "It's not polite to interrupt people."
Dawn opened her mouth to retort back, but nothing came out. Her hand shot to her throat, panic setting into her eyes, and Scar folded his arms.
"Right. As I was saying. I wanted to be a doctor." He shook his head sadly. "I was going to learn how to heal people manually, so then I could use my powers to speed up the process without ruining anyone. You know, learning how to set bones and stitch back together muscles, that kind of thing. I used to watch medical dramas when I was a kid, before I got locked up. But then it was testing day and you all decided that I didn't deserve rights anymore, just because I could kill a couple of flies with a wave of my hand."
"It wasn't about the flies." Chromia interjected. "You wouldn't have been at such a high level if you hadn't killed those guards."
"I would have been locked up either way." Scar glanced down at Grian, checking quickly that he was still breathing, then back up at him. "I figured I might as well get the VIP lounge."
"Okay, this has been fun and all, but we're not letting you out of here." Chromia reached for his belt, no doubt to grab another potion. "You're going back to the Vault where criminals like you belong."
"I guess you're right about that one." Scar lifted his hand, thumb and pointer finger extended to form a gun. "I'm actually a criminal now."
He mimed shooting and Chromia immediately doubled over, a shocked wheeze bursting from his lips as he fell to his knees. Dawn's head whipped between the two of them, her panic clearly increasing with every second, and Scar couldn't help but feel at least a little bit sympathetic. She was young, younger than he was for sure, and the Hero Organization's corruption and manipulation ran deep into her mind. But she had still tried to arrest him and Grian, still tried to drag them back to the Vault. He wasn't going to play nice just because a few heroes had been brainwashed into committing human rights violations.
"I'd say you have about….hmm…thirty minutes before his appendix explodes." Scar crouched down and scooped Grian up, carefully arranging him so that if he did throw up, he would throw up over Scar's shoulder rather than all over himself. He turned to face the third hero, who was standing still and silent near the edge of the rooftop, eyes wide.
"She'll have her voice back in a couple of days." He gestured with his head to Dawn. "But in the meantime, I'd recommend you run on down to the hospital or fetch that healer of yours. I don't think good ol' Chromia is going to last much longer."
Chromia, as if in response, let out a quiet whimper of pain. Blaze hesitated, sparks floating from his head and hands as he processed the situation. Then he nodded.
"Okay."
Dawn stamped her foot, a frustrated and angry expression on her face. Clearly she didn't like the idea of letting them get away. Again. But it wasn't like they had much of a choice. Appendicitis wasn't something to scoff at, especially once the appendix ruptured, and Chromia wasn't too far away from that point.
Scar pressed a kiss into Grian's hair, amusement bubbling up in him when he saw Dawn's glare. "Excellent. Oh, and tell your healer I said hi. I love their work."
Blaze cracked a small smile, despite the situation. "I'll let him know."
Scar remembered distantly something Grian mentioned, about how he had been more sympathetic recently and how he'd managed to avoid conflict with the Hero Organization while still helping out lower level vigilantes and villains. He would have to keep an eye on him. He would make for a powerful ally.
"Good luck with the surgery, Chromia!" Scar called over to the crumpled lump that was the hero. He responded with another grunt of pain. Goodbyes said, Scar fished out his grappling hook and pointed it at the nearest building, holding Grian tightly to his chest. As he zipped away, he watched as Dawn hauled Chromia to his feet, supporting his full weight, and Blaze raised his wrist to his mouth, no doubt to call in a helicopter to take Chromia to his unexpected surgery.
When they got back to their apartment, Scar gently set Grian down in their bed, plucking his mask off and placing it on his nightstand. He would take care of his robes later. Right now, he needed medical attention.
Scar had already stopped his bleeding when they were on the rooftop, and he had diminished the effects of Chromia's potions to at least some degree, but he still had to remove the bullets and properly close the wounds. Not to mention, it looked like he had also aggravated the old stab wound in his waist.
"I told you not to go out, mister." Scar chided Grian's sleeping form lightly. "You're not allowed to leave the bed for the next few days, you hear me?"
Grian, naturally, didn't answer. Scar sighed, then propped him up on the pillows, stretching out his wings to examine them carefully. It only took him about thirty minutes to dig out the bullets and clean the wounds using the heavily stocked first aid kit that they kept beneath the kitchen sink. It helped that Grian was still passed out and wasn't feeling anything that he was doing. It was always harder when he was awake, wincing and apologizing every few seconds.
Scar scrubbed his hands clean in the sink, watching the blood wash down the drain along with the suds of the soap. Then he trudged back over to the bed, climbing into it before gently placing his hand on Grian's chest. He closed his eyes, then pushed the glowing healing magic bubbling beneath his skin into him. He knew that if he opened his eyes that the room would be full of golden light, but he had already seen it dozens of times before and it had lost its appeal, so he elected to keep them closed.
As he slowly closed up Grian's wounds, he felt a weight fall on top of his shoulders and eyelids, a fatigue that he had grown used to from taking care of Grian. Grian didn't try to get injured, quite the opposite really, but he still got hurt a lot more than the average person, and so Scar had to patch him together fairly often. Scar knew that Grian felt bad most of the time for getting hurt, no matter how many times Scar had told him that he was choosing to heal him and didn't mind taking care of him. The amount of times that Scar had woken up after healing to find Grian anxiously fluttering around in the kitchen and the bedside was well into double digits.
He yawned, pulling his hand away from Grian's heart and settling down on the mattress, setting his head in Grian's lap. It was a dangerous place to rest, seeing as Chromia's potions were resistant to magical healing and there was a chance that Grian was still feeling nauseous, but Scar preferred to be able to feel the breathing of his partner when he was injured. Just being able to feel the rise and fall of his breaths was calming, and Scar felt a smile tug onto his lips as he drifted off into the warm and fuzzy space that always filled his mind after healing. There was nowhere else he would rather be.
-
Grian woke up slowly, his head throbbing lightly as he rose into consciousness, a sign that he had been magically healed. He didn't try and fight to regain his memory of what happened to lead him to need Scar's healing, instead letting it drift back into his mind slowly. Frantically searching for the missing pieces had only ever led him to panic attacks and frustration, and he knew that they would naturally return to him soon enough.
Piece by piece, he began to remember the rooftop scene, standing alone amidst three heroes, getting shot repeatedly and going down to one of Chromia's potions. That explained the small stir of nausea in his gut, not strong enough for him to react to but strong enough to be unpleasant. Then Scar had swooped in to save the day, something he had only ever done once or twice before, and he had passed out knowing he was in capable hands.
Speaking of Scar, Grian could feel a familiar weight in his lap, rising and falling with even breaths. He peeled open his eyes to see his partner curled up on the mattress, head resting on Grian's thighs, peacefully passed out. His hair had fallen out of its usual ponytail, and there were faint purple circles beneath his eyes. They weren't nearly as bad as they had been when they had first met, trapped as they were in the Vault, but they were still more than Grian would like them to be. He would have to look into getting Scar a larger dose of melatonin.
In the meantime, he pushed himself up a bit off of the pillows he was propped up on, reaching clumsily for one of the spare blankets they kept next to the bed. He managed to snag one of them, unfolding it as he lifted it, then draped it over Scar's sleeping form. It wasn't that cold out, but Scar always slept better with something on top of him.
Grian slumped back against the pillows, then winced as the motion tugged at the wounds on his wings. Under normal circumstances, he would have tucked them away into the little pocket dimension he usually kept them in, but they always healed faster in the real world. He wrinkled his nose, adjusting his wings to make himself more comfortable, then laid back, closing his eyes. He could go for a bit more sleep, he was still fighting off the effects of Chromia's potions and definitely needed the rest.
He had almost drifted off into a peaceful doze when he heard one of the windows of the apartment open. Immediately, his eyes snapped open, senses on high alert. No one knew the location of their apartment, not even their landlord. They had taken great extremes to make sure that the landlord didn't know who they were, just in case she considered telling the government. None of their allies knew where they were either, you never knew when a villain would turn on you.
The window itself was hidden from view by the several cardboard boxes that they had stacked to create a sort of privacy wall from the living room area, since they didn't exactly have multiple rooms in their apartment. Now Grian was cursing their choice, because he had no idea who or what was coming through that window.
There were a few options as to who could be breaking in. It could be just some common burglar, hoping to snag a few things to stay afloat. They weren't exactly in the nicest place, it wasn't too much of a stretch to assume. But they were also on the fourth floor, which was a less easy place to break into. If there really was a burglar, they would have targeted the first or second floor.
It could be a vigilante, one of the eager types, tracking them across the city and striking now that they knew the evil supervillains were both out of commission. But no, Scar was way too careful to let one of them follow them home, and vigilantes usually went after smaller criminals, the ones that the heroes overlooked in lieu of chasing down the big bad villains.
It could be a hero. Maybe when Grian wasn't looking, one of them had stuck a tracker in him. Chromia had shot him four times, any one of those could have had a bug in them. Scar would have gotten rid of the bullets, but there might have been enough time for the heroes to track them down. Maybe. It was a bit of a stretch, but…out of all the options, it seemed the most likely. That would be very bad. Grian was definitely out of commission, as was Scar. If it was in fact heroes, they were in big trouble.
Slowly, Grian reached over to the nightstand, plucking up the pistol and magazine they kept there in case of emergency. He loaded it deftly, flicking off the safety and propping himself up in bed to point the gun at the edge of the box wall, ready to shoot as soon as whoever it was came around the corner. He could hear a rustling, almost like plastic bags, shifting and moving around. That was strange, usually criminals went with a quieter bag to carry things, and there was no way a hero or vigilante would be carrying a plastic bag. Maybe this was an amateur thief?
Movement, just at the edge of the box wall. Grian had a second to react, to make his decision. He could either shoot first, ask questions later, or he could call out and demand they reveal themselves before he pelted them full of bullets. To call out would risk his position and potentially make it harder for him to shoot if he and Scar were threatened by this person. But if this really was some amateur thief just trying to scrape by…he had killed many people in his time, but he had always tried to spare those who had nothing to do with the whole hero/villain thing.
In less than a second, he had made up his mind.
"Don't move." He ordered loudly, and the movement stopped. So did the rustling. "Take two steps to your right with your hands in the air."
There was a moment of silence before someone shuffled out from behind the wall of boxes, hands up by their shoulders. They were average height, maybe a bit shorter, and they looked like some kind of blaze hybrid, with flaming hair and red eyes. It was then that Grian recognized exactly who they were from the sheer amount of propaganda that the city plastered around the entire city. It wasn't exactly like the heroes had secret identities, it was harder to market them that way, and since they were completely underneath the government's thumb, there was nothing they could really do to maintain any sort of civilian persona. This was Blaze, standing in between his living room and bedroom, wearing civilian clothing and holding his hands in the air, a grocery bag swinging from side to side on his arm.
Grian stared at him for a long moment, trying to process the scene in front of him. He had been expecting someone in dark clothing, maybe a hero in uniform. Not a hero in civilian clothing. Especially not the hero that was known underground as the most sympathetic.
"What—"
"Don't shoot, I'm not going to arrest you." Blaze blurted out, eyes wide. "I promise. Not going to do anything. I'm not armed. I'm just a civilian right now."
"Are you robbing me??" Grian spluttered, not lowering his gun. "Seriously?"
"No, no, not robbing you!" Blaze shook his head frantically. "I'm actually giving you something, not taking anything. Please put down the gun, you're scaring me."
"Good!" Grian pushed himself up even higher on the bed, barely hiding the wince as it tugged at the bullet wound in his shoulder and the stab wound in his side. "Did you think you could just waltz in here without getting in trouble? I'd like to remind you, you're in the home of two of the biggest supervillains in this city."
"I know, I know." Blaze swallowed and Grian tracked the movement, waiting for the moment when he got bored of talking and started throwing fireballs. "Listen, I'm not going to hurt you or your…"
"Partner." Grian stated, not letting him waver his focus. He could still feel Scar breathing steadily beneath him, blissfully unaware of what was going on over his head.
"Partner." Blaze repeated. "I'm not going to do anything to either of you. I just…I brought soup."
Grian blinked. "You brought…soup?"
"Well, not quite." Blaze stammered. "I brought the ingredients for soup, do you like tomato soup? It's my favorite soup for when I'm hurt and Skizz can't quite heal me all the way up. It's my mom's recipe, it's good, I promise. I figured, Scott put a lot of bullets in you, and with the potion on top of it…well, you and your healer would be out of commission for a while. Which means it would probably be difficult to get food. And…I may have put a tracker on your robes, but none of the heroes know! It's just me, I just wanted to make sure you didn't end up dead in a ditch or something, I kinda need you both alive and so I figured that since I knew your location and you would probably be unable to take care of yourselves for a bit, that I would come by. That's it! I'm not going to do anything weird, none of the heroes know anything about this and I really don't want them to find out, so you even have blackmail over me."
Grian felt like he was reeling a bit. "You…okay. You brought soup, but not really, just the ingredients. You put a tracker in my robes and followed me home. You need us alive?"
"I…" Blaze looked aside, a shameful look on his face. "How about this? I make you both soup, and then instead of talking about this over a gun, we can talk about it over warm tomato soup?"
"That wasn't everything?" Grian hesitated for a moment, then lowered his gun, making sure to put the safety back on.
Blaze let out a sigh of relief. "Thank you. And no, not really. I…there's a reason I need you two alive. I just…"
"Soup first, conversation later." Grian finished. "Alright. The kitchen is around the corner. If you pull any funny business though, I will shoot."
"Of course, of course." Blaze nodded. "Sorry for…uh…breaking into your house. I didn't really want to go through the hassle of going through the front door, my face is on every billboard in this city and I didn't want to cause a scene."
"It's...it's fine." Grian slowly leaned back onto his pillows. He was completely baffled by this turn of events. It didn't really make sense. There was a hero in his house right now, making his way to the kitchen to make tomato soup. Tomato soup. Why on earth was there a hero in his kitchen making tomato soup? He clearly had some kind of motive, but Grian and Scar were basically helpless. He could have taken anything he wanted. Why hadn't he? Why was he making soup?
"Do you have any pots?" Blaze called from the kitchen. "I couldn't really bring mine from home."
"They're in the cupboard to the left of the oven." Grian called back, slightly dazed.
"Found them, thanks!"
Grian slowly set the gun down on the nightstand, close enough for him to grab in an instant if he needed, but far enough away that he was following at least some of the gun safety he had been taught at a young age. With his other hand, the one that Chromia had shot, the one that still ached when he moved it despite the healing it had already gotten, he brushed some of Scar's hair out of his face. He was still fast asleep, and probably would stay that way for the next few hours. Four bullets wounds were a lot to heal at once, not to mention that he'd probably left some damage on the heroes on his way out with Grian. He hadn't even registered Grian's loud demands or Blaze's frantic rambling. Good. He needed the rest.
"So." Grian said aloud, directed his voice towards the kitchen. "Why didn't you sell us out the heroes the second you had our location?"
There was no answer for a second as Blaze considered the question, then replied. "I guess you could say I've had a change of heart recently. I don't want either of you to end up back in the Vault."
"Even though we're supervillains?" Grian replied skeptically. "I don't really believe you."
"That's fair." Blaze sighed. "I guess that's part of why I'm making soup for you right now. I need you to believe me."
"What's so important that you're willing to make dinner for two of the most dangerous men in the city?"
Another moment of pause. The tap of a spoon on the edge of a pot. The quiet, nearly inaudible hum of the stove.
"I thought we were going to talk about this over soup."
Grian hummed. "You'll have to forgive me for being impatient when there's a hero standing in my kitchen."
A quiet huff of a humorless laugh. "Yeah, I guess you're right. There's…the heroes put my buddy in the Vault."
"They…" Grian realized in an instant what he meant. It had been plastered all over the news six months ago, it was still referenced by the media practically every weekend. Impulse Essvii, aka Shockwave defecting from the heroes and wiping out the power grid. Getting caught in less than twenty four hours. Getting thrown in the Vault for his crimes without even a trial. The Hero Organization had been playing clean up ever since that day, trying to convince the public that Essvii had undergone a psychotic breakdown but that the rest of the heroes had been issued mandatory therapy and that the same thing would never happen again. Grian remembered how shaken the heroes had been after that day, when he had robbed three banks in a week without so much as a scratch.
"He's my best friend. Skizz's too. We can't…we…we just can't." Blaze's voice shook as he spoke. "I know how bad the Vault is. I've read the reports. I've read the files. I…he's already been in there for six months and I haven't even been able to visit him."
"Do you know where they put him?" Grian asked quietly.
"Yeah." Blaze whispered, but it was easy to hear in the quiet of the apartment. "Bottom floor. The VIP lounge."
"Oh."
Grian knew the bottom floor of the Vault painfully well. He had spent three years locked in the second most secure cell, counting every passing second, nothing to spend his time on. A shower once a week, or at least, he was pretty sure it was once a week. Time was impossible to keep track of. Guards prodding him down the halls with sticks, too afraid to touch him in case he gathered enough energy to smite one of them. He couldn't, not with the poor nutrition they gave him, but they still weren't willing to risk it. At least his power wasn't tied to his hands like Scar's were. Like Essvii's were. Scar had metal clamps over his hands, coverings that kept them hidden from the world and himself. He hadn't seen his hands for 11 years.
The oven timer beeped and was quickly silenced, and a few minutes later, Blaze emerged from the kitchen, a bowl of steaming soup in his hands, spoon leaning up against the rim. There were tear tracks running down his cheeks. Grian took the bowl from him carefully, pulling it to his chest and sniffing it lightly. It just smelled like ordinary tomato soup. It was the right color, the right shade. Although if Blaze wanted to poison them, it would be easy to disguise it.
"I didn't poison it." Blaze said quietly, as if reading his thoughts. "Like I said, I need you both. Alive and well."
"You want us to help you break Essvii out." Grian stated simply. "Am I right?"
"I can't leave him in there." Blaze stared down at his feet. "I can't."
"You're a good friend." Grian stirred his soup idly, then took a spoonful, blowing on it gently before popping it in his mouth. "Oh wow, this is really good."
"Thanks." A hesitant smile crept onto Blaze's face, and his eyes flicked up to meet Grian's. "It's a family recipe."
"How many people are in on your little idea?" Grian asked, taking other bite.
"It's just me and Skizz." Blaze spread his hands. "And you now, I guess."
"Skizz is…?" Grian didn't remember seeing his name among the list of heroes.
"Our healer." Blaze glanced around the room, then moved to sit down in one of the plush chairs that they had bought with their well stolen money. "He doesn't make public appearances very often."
"Oh, L'monn?" Grian nodded. "I remember seeing his name in the files that I definitely didn't steal."
Blaze let out a surprised laugh. "Yeah. Yeah. That's him. We haven't really gotten anywhere with planning, I've just been trying to…I guess make myself look good to the vigilantes and villains on the city so that I can get an in. And then I got assigned to you, and then we saw your partner show up, and I…you guys organized the Vault breakout from inside the walls. If anyone can get Impulse out, it's you two."
"What's in it for us?" Grian was devouring the soup now, ignoring the nausea in his gut in favor of the hunger battling it out for dominance. "A Vault break is dangerous business, we could easily get caught and thrown back in. Obviously we'd find a way back out, we always do, but I'd rather not have a repeat of my Vault experiences. It's not exactly the most pleasant time."
"You'd have three very powerful allies on your side with plenty of knowledge on how the Hero Organization works." He must have been expecting that question, because he rattled off his answer like a script. "Electricity, fire, and healing are all relatively rare powers, and I know you already have a healer, but with two, it'll be easier to handle things, to recover quicker. Whatever revenge you want on the Hero Organization, it's yours. Between the three of us, we can tell you everything you need."
It was an incredibly tempting offer. A tempting offer on top of his already sympathetic cause.
"I'll need to talk to my partner about it, once he wakes up." Grian decided. "I'll get back to you by the end of the evening, or tomorrow morning at the latest. Do you have a burner number that I can use?"
"Yeah." Blaze nodded, pulling out a slim phone from his pocket. "You better not ghost me."
"I won't." Grian promised. "I know how important this is to you."
"Just…please." Blaze got to his feet, stepping closer and turning around his phone to show him the number. "I can't leave him there."
Grian fumbled for a pen, finally retrieving one from the nightstand and scribbling the number down on his hand. "If we decide not to help you directly, we'll still give you a ton of information. No one deserves the Vault."
"Thank you." Blaze said softly.
"Don't thank me yet." Grian leaned back, settling in on his cushion throne. "Thank me when your buddy gets out."
"Right." Blaze took a deep breath, then held out a hand to shake. "Call me Tango, by the way. It's my civilian name, though you probably already knew that."
Tango Tekk, engineer before being recruited into the heroes. Yeah, Grian knew his name already. But he still took Tango's hand and shook it, giving him a grin.
"Pleasure to meet you properly, Tango."