#<- malakai if you see this. hey man take it easy

[fishwikipedia]

someone come up with an interesting storyline reason malakai left brody buddy & julia or i’m just gonna say they put him back in the hospital

[durrzerker]

Taskmaster: The Line. Chapter 5: Secrets

The old Masters of Evil headquarters was still intact. It had not burned down, been bombed, or been swarmed by supervillains. There weren't even rats in the walls.

That was the totality of the good news.

Everything else, in summary, had completely gone to shit.

It was a ragged party that crossed the threshold of Baron Zemo's former home. Laura and Black Ant were leading the pack by now, as they were the only ones who weren't limping or nearly collapsing with exhaustion. Black Ant had caught up with the group shortly after shrinking down to escape the chaos that he had spawned during the Bagalia Freedom Festival, and it was a good thing, too; Akeja had silently collapsed a quarter mile from the gargantuan mansion, and the other children weren't faring much better. Carrying Akeja and Mara across his shoulders like a pair of sandbags, Eric had been uncharacteristically silent as they stopped in the dank foyer of the abandoned building. "Amazing no one's taken this place over yet," he finally said.

"They've been trying." Taskmaster was favoring his wounded rib a bit more now; without time to rest and with the increasingly desperate pace that they had set to finish out their journey, he was in a good deal of pain himself. "I hadn't decided what to do with the place, so I've been letting ol' Tessie clear them out to keep her weapons in good shape. An idling warbot is..." He trailed off; he couldn't even finish the joke. The spot where Laura had stabbed him was throbbing in the way only an adamantium blade could, the same way it had when she'd gored his hand a year back. It was like every nerve had been cut in half with molecular precision. Pulling off his dirty cloak and setting it into a pile against the wall, he collapsed against it. "Role call..."

Laura, whose healing factor at least allowed her to remain in peak shape, set Malakai down on a huge old Corinthian leather couch. "Everyone's here. I've been keeping track. You don't look so good, Taskmaster."

"No shit? Maybe it's because you fucking stabbed me." He wasn't mad about it. Really.

"I'm not going to feel guilty about that," Laura replied, her ears visibly burning. "You had done nothing to warrant the benefit of the doubt, and you left Black Ant behind to ambush me."

"I left him behind to ambush the person -stalking- us," Tony countered. "How was I supposed to know it was you? How long had you even been following us, anyways? Didn't you see us -helping- the fucking kids?" Tony closed his eyes behind his mask, even as he argued. To Laura, it still looked like the ghoulish visage was staring her down.

"...Truth be told, yes. But from where I was, it just looked like you were fighting over them -- and you did crash their vehicle."

Tony could tell that she didn't like when she had to try and get a bead on how he was feeling. The man's airtight costume blocked his scent from her, and he could alter his body language whenever he liked; it was one of his most useful skills, the kind that wasn't as obvious to people as other applications of his photographic reflexes.

"Well, whatever," Tony replied with a grunt. "The Hub's agent ain't here and I need to sleep, alright? Wake me up when they arrive -- I think we could all use a little rest."

"I don't think we should..." Laura pursed her lips and stopped when she heard the crinkling of a wrapper behind her. Eric had finally found use for his remaining honey buns he'd swiped earlier. He was passing them out to the assorted Scions, who had piled together on the couch in the living room. While Akeja had gone right to sleep, the others' hunger had won out - they voraciously assaulted the treats with the kind of shamelessness only starvation could inspire. "...Yeah, alright. Only for awhile though, Masters." She turned around and headed towards the kitchen with that, likely to look for more food for the children.

Tony watched her go, but before she'd even made it out of the living room, the mercenary had passed out. He dreamed of the Scion children.

--

He was in the middle of some kind of nightmare in which all six of the children were surrounding him, throwing accusations that he couldn't understand in their unique language. He wasn't quite sure exactly when he woke up, because when he did, the children were arguing loudly in that same tongue.

"Hey, hey!" Eric called out. "Come on, people are trying to sleep here -- namely my very ill-tempered partner."

"Fuck you, Man of Ants!" Shouted the sixth child that Tony had never heard speak yet, and now it was evident why; a girl with red hair and a deeply thick brogue, she was barely understandable even when trying her best. "Y'think ginna scrap o'fud makeus even?! Not a'er what you did, nay, him neither!"

What him and Eric did...? Taskmaster didn't move from where he was, kept his breathing slow. His perfect control of his body's actions came in handy here -- especially when Laura joined the conversation, returning to the living room to figure out what the big screaming match was about. "What's going on? What -did- you two do, O'Grady...?"

"It's none of your business, Wolverine." Eric's voice was surprisingly serious, more harsh than almost any time that Tony had heard it before. "If these brats really want to tell you, I can't stop them; but I'm not turning on him like that."

There was a pause. Tony opened his eyes, opting to keep his mask's optics dimmed in the process; all part of how he could easily pretend that he wasn't paying attention, even to Wolverine's highly enhanced senses. Laura was pacing, glancing to the gathered children and then stopping before Eric. "I'm going to get to the bottom of this one way or the other, but I'm curious; why -do- you do this, O'Grady?"

"What do you mean?" He snapped back defensively.

"Why do you follow Taskmaster? I've seen your relationship. You call yourself his partner, but he treats you more like a sidekick. You were an Avenger once; you were a hero, even if you had your problems. Why follow a jerk like Masters?"

Clearly trying to deflect, Black Ant turned away from her. "Keep your voice down, huh? You're gonna wake him up."

"He's completely passed out. I'd be able to hear it if he was up."

Realizing he wasn't going to get out of this, Black Ant hesitated, then explained, "Look...you don't know him like I do. I -don't- follow Taskmaster."

"But--"

"--Stop. You want to know? Then let me talk." Eric stepped forward, accusingly prodding her in the chest. "I don't follow Taskmaster, I follow -Tony-. Even when he trained me back with the Initiative, I could tell something was different about him compared to other supervillains. He -got- what it was like, you know? To want to do one thing, but to feel drawn to another. Then, when I was with the Secret Avengers, I found out about everything...his memory problems. His -wife-."

"He's got a WIFE?" Laura nearly shouted, then covered her mouth. Taskmaster's breath nearly hitched, giving him away. It took all of his self-control to maintain the illusion that he was asleep, doubly so when Eric turned to look his way.

"Yeah, he does; and he doesn't even know it. It's The Hub. You know, the lady who's supposed to be sending our fucking -help-? The way his powers work, every time he copies someone new, like he did to get your stupid foot claws, he loses everything else. As far as most people are concerned, Taskmaster's all that's left; the mercenary, the guy who will kidnap anyone or fight anyone for hire; but when you work with him like I do, you -see- him every day...it becomes obvious that ain't the case."

"Bullshit," Maya snapped, sounding wounded.

"...It's true," Eric insisted. "Look, don't get me wrong! Tony -- not Taskmaster -- isn't a saint. I'm not saying he's some kind of heroic good guy underneath it all. But you don't realize how -easy- he goes on you fucking people," the mercenary accused, glaring at Laura as he started to anxiously pace in a circle. "Did you know that? He'd rather let himself get stabbed through the hand than actually risk really hurting you, because even though -he- doesn't understand it...this is self-flagellation. He's punishing himself every time he takes a job, and his fucking wife LETS him! He doesn't know any better! He's in...factory settings, as he calls it!"

Falling silent for a moment, Laura pressed her hand to her mouth in thought. When she finally responded, her tone was somber and disbelieving in equal measure. She wasn't buying this at all. "So, what. You're saying he wasn't -trying- when he attacked my sisters and I? He shot them in the head!"

"No, I'm saying that he was trying -- to commit suicide by superhero. Look...I've seen him when pressed, okay? He does -not- go down easy, and there's a reason that he's actually feared so much in Bagalia. He doesn't half-ass it here; you piss him off, you're dead. You do something he finds distasteful, you're dead. If you were watching us, you saw how we shut down that Jason Waterfalls jerkoff. He'd never fight like that against you, against Spider-Man, against any of you 'hero' types." Slumping down onto the couch, planting his palms against either side of his helmet, Eric took it off. A mess of unruly red hair, a to-the-atom perfect replica of the appearance of his original body. Tony knew that he'd often questioned if he was the 'real' Eric, or some kind of facsimile created in his image. Tony had always argued the former, maybe against his better senses. He just wasn't sure that he himself liked the alternative. Was that selfish? He considered it before focusing his attention on his partner's continued speaking.

"I've seen him pin his boot to Captain America's face. He had him dead to rights. But when the time came, he didn't finish the job, even though he could have. And if you corner him about it, he'll claim it's because he doesn't want the 'heat', or he'll make excuses, but when it really comes down to it..." Eric looked up at Laura; Taskmaster was too far away to see his expression, but his tone gave away everything that he needed to know. "...That's Tony in there, under The Taskmaster. People don't see Tony, he hides it so well. They see that stupid fucking costume, that ridiculous cape...and a grim echo of the guy I know who taught me; who's ignored every rule he sets for himself for my sake."

"Why, though?" Laura asked, sounding skeptical. "It's easy for you to make these claims, but have you ever considered that he's lying to you? That he's just pathetic and lonely, and keeps you around so he has control over someone?"

"Shut the hell up," Eric snapped back at her, nearly rising. "I'm not the only one who knows this. He'll pretend he's forgotten, but Cap does, too; can you believe Taskmaster still admires him? Hell, have you ever even SEEN him copy a supervillain's moves? I've seen him throw like Bullseye, like...once. But day in, day out? It's Rogers. Daredevil. Black Knight. Hawkeye. -You-. And you wanna tell me he's faking it, when he tries to be like you on a level even he doesn't realize?"

Laura looked ready to bite back, to respond to Eric's accusatory tone, but after a moment she simply stopped walking around and regarded the children. While they still looked annoyed, still seemed ready to argue with Eric, they'd all shifted to listening intently. For some reason that Tony couldn't fathom, they were invested in this. What did Black Ant know? What wasn't he telling him?

"He wants to be the best, and I don't just mean at fighting. Every time, before he forgets, he becomes a little more like you, a little less like Taskmaster," Eric murmured, barely loud enough for Taskmaster to hear. "And then he goes back to it, gets his next job; but I'm not stupid. I've been watching people who were better than me my whole life. When he -really- has a reason to fight, you can almost see Tony in there, like a reflection in a lake. And then he has to copy someone new, or gets pushed further than his mind can take, and --" He mimicked a popping sound with his finger in his mouth. "...The next pebble drops, and it's gone."

The room fell silent for a little while, interrupted only by the sounds of the Scions grabbing the food that Laura had brought them on a tray and starting to dig into it. Looking conflicted, Wolverine finally threw her hands up. "So, what? You're saying that I should trust him? That he's 'not so bad'?"

"No," Eric replied coolly, putting his helmet back on. "I'm saying that I'm keeping my cards to my chest for a reason, and that I'm not telling you about what happened with these kids for the same reason I'm not telling -him-. Like I said, if they want to share? I can't stop them; but you won't understand why things went down like they did. What I will tell you is this: You need Taskmaster to save these children. Even they know it; it's the only reason they haven't ratted us out already. And if he finds out what he did...he's gonna run. He'll snap, he'll disappear, and then we're all fucked."

"He can barely move. He's hardly going to carry this team." Laura's tone wasn't proud, just factual.

"I'm not talking about fighting," Eric replied vaguely. "Just...don't trust me, okay? I don't give a shit. I don't even like you, Logan had better hair. Talk to the kids if you want, but I'm done explaining myself." He started past her, only for the smaller woman to plant a palm on his chest.

"This isn't finished, O'Grady," Laura warned. "Not by a long shot."

"I know," he responded, "...And I'm sorry, I spoke out of turn. Your hair is -amazing-." Taskmaster couldn't see them anymore, but he heard the distinct sound of Eric attempting to lean in and smell her -- and Laura punching him in the stomach.

After that, the group scattered. The Hub's agent -- the agent of his wife, Tony forced himself to try and internalize without much success -- was still not here, and everyone was occupying the time they were forced to wait differently. Eric was playing on his phone, Laura checked on the Scions and then went to explore the enormous mansion, and the Scions huddled together, finally well-fed and trying to catch up on their immense lack of sleep.

For his part, Taskmaster had a lot to think about now. Waiting another half hour or so before 'waking up', he finally rose and staggered out of the living room, heading for the armory. When he'd been working as Zemo's prison warden, he had stashed some equipment here, including of the medical variety. He could patch himself up a little better, get fighting fit again.

He'd barely opened the door of the safehouse and stepped inside when he heard footsteps approaching; small and quick. Grabbing a kit full of strange syringes, his personal supply of advanced first aid from his on-staff scientist Albino, Taskmaster turned in time to see one of the Scions approaching. It was the last he didn't recognize, all fire-colored hair and intense features that he quickly recognized as a strange mixture of Chinese and Scottish.

Tears in her eyes, she stepped forward, fearlessly grabbing for the first weapon she could find - a Desert Eagle, already loaded for haste's sake in case of emergency, barrel pointing straight at Taskmaster's forehead. When she finally spoke, it was through tears. "D'ye really not remember what ya did to us?" She asked him accusingly.

He didn't know how to answer.

[littlemisswolfie]

into a place where thoughts can bloom

AO3

Summary: A few weeks after Darius’s departure from Las Vegas, Li Cheng discovers something that will change her life forever.

“Well, shit, that explains a lot.”

Usually when Yi mutters this to herself while she sits in the bathroom, it’s to the sight of a red stain on her undies and the feeling of someone punching her repeatedly in the uterus. Her periods have always been rough, and the PMS that precedes it turns her into a weepy mess.

She hadn’t thought anything weird of her intense emotions the past few weeks, with the whole Darius thing. She can’t even remember how many times she cried before she told Darius to go. It was only natural for emotions to be high during a crisis like that, right?

But then she started throwing up.

And, listen. Yi isn’t stupid. Sure, she dropped out of med school, but she got into med school before that, so she has some brains. And she got a year or two of schooling in before she dropped out, too, so she knows more about health than a lot of other people. She knew she didn’t have the flu (she had no other symptoms) or food poisoning (she hadn’t had anything new to eat and all her food was cooked the same way it always was) or anything other common thing that could be causing nausea like this.

So, she checked her period tracker.

And she’s two weeks late.

“Okay, Yi, calm down,” she says to herself. “Nothing’s definite yet. It could just be stress.”

*

It’s not just stress.

*

Yi can’t bring herself to tell her mom right away. After that conversation they had about Darius, curled up together on the shop floor, she feels like it would disappoint her. So, instead, she calls one of the only people she can.

Onyx comes waltzing into the shop with all her usual grace, but her face belies her worry. “Hey, sweetheart,” she says, hopping over the counter she could have easily walked around and wrapping her arms around Yi’s shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

Yi quickly flips the sign on the door to closed and turns back to her friend. “I fucked up,” she says, and she hates that her voice cracks a little.

“Oh, honey, it can’t be that bad.”

“I’m pregnant.”

*

The rest of the troupe arrives in short order, and Cal even brings Avi, which is a surprise to Yi. It feels surreal, meeting in the bike shop instead of at the circus or their apartment, but if Yi leaves the shop unattended again her mom may actually kill her, pending grandchild or no.

“And you’re sure it’s Darius’s?” Wrath asks after she’s done explaining.

Yi levels her with an annoyed look from the stool Onyx and Malakai insisted she sit on. “It’s not like I’ve been sleeping around or anything like that. Darius is the only person I’ve been with since college.”

Avi tugs on her jacket, and when she looks down, he has an astonished expression on his face. “There’s a baby in your tummy?”

“There sure is, bud.”

His small hands touch her stomach, and his face screws up. “I can’t feel it!”

Malakai laughs. “The baby has to grow a little more before you’ll be able to feel it.”

“You’ll be the first to know when it moves,” she tells Avi, very seriously, and this seems to appease him.

Cal is watching their interaction carefully but, oddly enough, he’s not glaring at Yi like he usually does. “You’re keeping the baby, then?” he asks, his voice soft.

The rest of the troupe sucks in huge breaths, like they’re waiting for an explosion. And, usually, they’d be right. Yi and Cal have never really gotten along, after all, and their relationship only got worse when he started fighting against Darius. But Yi can hear the real question Cal is asking. “Yes,” she says. “This is my baby.”

She never saw herself becoming a mother at such a young age, but as soon as she even suspected herself of being pregnant, she was in love. The thought of abortion or adoption never even crossed her mind.

Cal nods. Then, he kneels next to her stool and hugs her.

And she lets herself cry.

*

They decide as a group that Yi should move into the apartment with the troupe.

Part of it is so they can keep an eye on her. She’s having a demon’s baby, after all, and no one knows how that will progress. It only makes sense for Las Vegas’s premiere demon experts to keep her as close as possible.

Another part of it, Yi thinks, is that the apartment feels a little too big without Darius in it. No one says it, but it’s obvious they’re thinking it, because she’s thinking it, too. She only knew Darius for a few months before she told him to leave, but the troupe has been living and working with him for years, so the loneliness she feels, how she’s a little too cold at night without Darius at her back, how sometimes her fingers twitch like they’re looking for his hand… all those things must be even worse for them.

“You can have Darius’s room,” Wrath says as she and Onyx help her pack up her clothes. “You’ve spent enough nights there already, and I’m sure you would’ve moved in eventually, once Darius got back.”

Onyx rocks a little onto her toes, eyes sparkling. “We can even set up a nursery! We have plenty of unused rooms around!”

Yi makes herself laugh. “The baby isn’t even an inch long yet.” When she says “the baby,” her hand falls to her stomach. It’s still flat, for now. Most women don’t start showing until their second trimester, if she remembers correctly, and she figures she’s less than eight weeks along. “Let’s at least wait until we can tell the sex.”

“Are you gonna be one of those people that insists on blue for boys and pink for girls?” Onyx’s tone indicates she disapproves of this. “That’s so boring.”

Yi shakes her head. “No, nothing like that.”

“Then what is it?” Wrath asks.

“I’m not out of the woods yet,” Yi admits, her fingers curling on her stomach. “The first trimester is when a person is most likely to miscarry, and I’ve been drinking at the circus almost every night since Darius left.” Concern and understanding dawn in Wrath and Onyx’s eyes, but Yi barrels on. “I need to see an obstetrician and take it easy for another month or two before I start decorating a nursery.”

Wrath squeezes her shoulder. “We’ll take care of it,” she promises. “You won’t have to lift a finger.” Then a pained look crosses her face, and Yi wonders why, until she continues, “But first, you have to tell your mom.”

Oh, shit.

*

The troupe takes what they’ve packed up in the jeep and drive it to the apartment while Yi waits for her mom to come in. She’s out running errands right now, and Yi feels full of nervous energy, her knee bouncing under the counter as she waits. Her phone, now filled with the rest of the troupe’s phone numbers (and isn’t it just the weirdest thing, that after everything they’ve been through together, her getting pregnant is what prompts them to exchange phone numbers?) feels like lead in her jacket pocket, waiting for her text to say she’s ready to go.

A few customers come in, grumbling about her extended lunch break (how she explained away her packing), and whenever she has to pull a bike from the rack, she’s very careful to keep the wheels and frame and handlebars away from her stomach. She’s so not in the mood for customer service today, and every transaction makes her want to scream. All she wants is to curl up in Darius’s bed and go to sleep and pretend he’s with her for a little while.

God, shut up, she thinks to herself, annoyed. He’s only been gone a few weeks. You lived more than twenty years without him, grow up.

The bell above the door chimes, and Yi looks up, ready to be irritated by another customer, but freezes when it’s her mom, struggling with a stack of cardboard boxes. “Oh, Yi, good. Come help me with these boxes.”

So Yi does, grabbing the top few boxes out of her mother’s arms and carrying them to the storage room in the back. They’re not too heavy, thank god; she doubts her mom would appreciate her dropping merchandise. She’s still not carrying as many boxes as she would have a week ago, and from the noise her mom makes, her mom notices, too.

“So, what’s up?” her mom asks her when the boxes are safely stored behind the locked door. “There’s been something on your mind lately. Talk to me.”

Yi takes a deep breath in through her nose and out through her mouth. Then, appropriately steeled, she turns around to face her mother. “I’m moving out,” she says.

Her mother, to her credit, doesn’t look too phased. “I’m surprised you stuck around as long as you did,” she jokes. “Most kids can’t wait to get away from their parents. Are you thinking of staying in Las Vegas or going somewhere else?”

“No, Mom. I’m moving out today.”

That, at least, gives her some pause. “That’s awfully fast.” Her eyes narrow like they always do when Yi is in trouble. She wonders if her child will see that expression from her, too. “Or have you been planning this and just forgot to tell me?”

“No, it was pretty last minute.” As in, just decided today, but her mom doesn’t need to know that. “My friends asked me to move into their apartment and helped me pack up my stuff during my lunch break.”

Her mom arches an eyebrow. “Are these Darius’s friends?” Yi’s silence must be answer enough, because her mom sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. “Yi, honey, I’m so glad you have friends again, but I think putting some distance between you and the people Darius works with is for the best. He’s been gone for a few weeks; maybe it’s for the best if you just let him go.”

Yi meets her mother’s gaze. “He’s going to come back, Mom. He promised me he would.”

“Why did he leave in the first place?”

“I told him to.” When her mother makes a confused face, she continues, “He’s been struggling a lot with his identity and he’s convinced he’s a monster. I told him to put some distance between him and his work, grow as a person, and come back a better man.”

“I told your father something like that, once,” her mother says.

Yi winces. “It’s a little like looking in a mirror,” she says, and her mom goes quiet. Pale. Well, fuck it. “I’m moving out because I’m pregnant, Mom.”

“Oh, Yi…”

Yi lets her mother gather her in her arms. “I’m sorry,” she says.

“What for?”

“For getting pregnant so young. I know you wanted better for me.”

Her mom cups her face with her hands, so gentle, so warm. “I want you to be happy, above everything else.”

“I love you,” Yi says, because it feels like a good time to say it.

“I love you, too.” Her mom kisses her forehead. “I would support you, if you wanted to keep living here.”

“I know you would, but the troupe has a lot more money than us, and I don’t want to be more of a financial burden on you than I already am.”

“Yi…”

“Plus,” Yi jokes, “they’re going to give me a card linked to Darius’s bank account so I can spend his money on his baby.”

Her mom laughs and, for a moment, her worries seem a bit farther away than they were a little bit ago.

*

Onyx offers to sleep with her the first night, but Yi turns her down. “I can’t make you stay with me until Darius comes home.” Then, she pauses. “Maybe, if Ripley doesn’t mind…?”

Onyx laughs. “Yeah, she’s a way better cuddler than me, anyway. I’ll ask if she doesn’t mind bunking with you tonight.”

“Thank you.” Yi yawns suddenly, and, after a day of high emotions and packing and moving, is very, very tired. “I think I’ll crash early tonight. Good luck with the show.”

“Sleep tight!” Onyx hugs her, tight around the shoulders and loose everywhere else, and skips out of the room.

Though Ripley does decide to join her in Darius’s large bed that night, it’s still a little empty for Yi’s taste. Everything still smells like Darius’s cologne, and all his mementos and decorations are up. It’s almost like he’s going to come waltzing through the door any minute, and Yi’s mind, eager for him, keeps her awake far longer than she wants.

“It’s okay, baby,” she mutters, her hand on her stomach. “We have a big family, and your daddy will be back before we know it. We’re gonna be fine.”

Ripley grunts in her sleep and Yi lets herself bury her face in the abnormally good-smelling fur as she finally drifts off.

*

When Yi wakes up the next morning, she’s craving pancakes, so she decides to head to the kitchen and see if the troupe keeps the right ingredients for them around. “If they’re not charging us rent,” she tells her baby, “the least I can do is make some breakfast for them.”

As it turns out, they do have ingredients for pancakes, along with bacon and eggs, so Yi decides to make a big breakfast. Knowing the troupe, they got drunk after the show, so some greasy food would probably do them some good.

Avi joins her shortly after she’s done mixing up the pancake batter, his dinosaur hoodie pulled up over his head and sleep in his eyes. Yi is struck by the thought of a little boy or girl with monolid eyes and brown hair. Or maybe with her skin tone and Darius’s lips. It’s a little like a punch to the gut, only in a good way, somehow. “Good morning,” she manages to say.

Of course, Avi is not privy to her inner thoughts, so he doesn’t comment on them. “Are you making breakfast?” he asks.

“Yeah. Pancakes, bacon, and eggs. Do you want something to drink while I finish up?”

“Do we have orange juice?”

Yi sets her mixing bowl on the counter and opens the fridge to check. “We do!” She pulls the carton out, pours some into a small plastic cup with faded soccer balls on it, and hands it to him. “There you go, buddy.”

Sleepily, Avi hugs her around the knees. “Thank you,” he mumbles, and he wanders off to the living area to nurse his drink.

The rest of the troupe finally stumble out when Yi starts frying up the bacon, more than likely lured from their rooms by the enticing smell. Yi’s just glad the morning sickness is leaving her alone for now; she’s barely eaten the last few days because of how bad it gets, and she’s really tired of not being able to eat good food.

Wrath looks surprised to see her cooking. “You didn’t have to,” she says.

“You’re letting me live here for free, giving me access to Darius’s bank account, and, I’m sure, comping all my doctor’s bills.” Yi shrugs. “The least I can do is cook for you in the mornings after your shows.”

No one else has any protests to being cooked for, and they all sit around the big table and dig in. Yi looks around at her friends and has to blink back emotion welling in her eyes. Her hand lands on her stomach again, and she thinks, We’re gonna be just fine, baby.