The arm servos whined almost imperceptibly from the strain of lifting such a heavy object, but he managed it. “Here you go, ma'am.”

  “Thank you! I don't know what I would have done without you. Things are so rough around here these days, but I don't have the money to move out. Insurance didn't have my back,” the older woman responded with a bitter smile.

  “I know, ma'am, but please stay near populated areas. We're not always gonna be around to keep you safe, even though we'd like to be. There's just too many bad guys to deal with.”

  “Yes, yes, I'll be careful. Thank you again… What did you say your name was?”

  He raised his helmeted head from where he'd been inspecting his gauntlet for potential damage to look at the lady in front of him. “Gridlock, ma'am.”

  The response got him a tilt of her head. “I don't think I've heard of you before,” she mumbled.

  “That would be because this is my first outing. Done some hero work before, but never got up close and personal with the baddies, you know?” Jack explained, giving a laugh he didn't actually feel.

  “I see. Well thank you, young man. Stay safe out there!” she said as she left in her now-upright car.

  “I should be telling you that!” he called back good-naturedly, almost smiling.

  Almost.

  “That was good,” a serious voice spoke from behind him. “I expected to be required to intervene, but it seems that was unnecessary. Your armor works as well as you said it would.”

  He turned to look at the speaker, who was clad in armor herself. Gleaming silver, styled after the cladding plate of a knight. Medieval with a sword strapped to her waist, unlike his own set of modern power armor.

  It was a noteworthy contrast they made, two armored heroes seemingly from different time periods working together. But this was still very much an experimental thing, at least practically if not on an interpersonal level.

  “Thanks, Damsel,” he replied. It was the first time he'd gone out, and also their first time going out together, seeing as she'd insisted on chaperoning him when he mentioned this eventuality to her in one of their chats.

  Today was a better day for the two of them, he thought. Neither of them were okay; he wasn't sure if they ever could be, but they'd pulled themselves together over the past few months after Viperia's arrest. Oftentimes, grief still weighed one of them down to the point of threatening to slip into non-functionality, and the other would be there to keep their head in the game.

  Because this was their coping mechanism. Probably not the most healthy idea ever, throwing themselves into hero work to keep from wallowing in despair, though he felt it also wasn't the most unhealthy way of dealing with it. There were worse alternatives that he'd seriously considered. He was glad he'd settled on this, ultimately.

  After their initial meeting on that fateful day, they had kept in contact under the pretense of working with each other until the district stabilized.

  Ostensibly, that dynamic had been temporary at best, one that made them allies of convenience, but they'd gotten talking and… here they were. Still associating with one another.

  For him, it was a way to keep being Gridlock. With his teammates gone or unavailable, he'd needed to partner up with someone else while getting his power armor up and running since he hadn't wanted to lose momentum. Finn had always been particular about that term. Always keeping himself moving, never stopping.

  He swallowed the lump in his throat.

  For Damsel, it had been a way to keep up something of a support network in the field whenever she was working more than the allotted hours for minors in the DHD. He'd been supporting a bad habit, yes, but he was in no position to judge. In the wake of Mistral's funeral and the changes to the local branch, she had needed someone looking out for her.

  Just as he had needed someone looking out for him. As much as he didn't want to admit it, he'd come far too close to losing himself even when he didn't think he had the right to. After all, how could he give up when his brother in all but name had been wiped off the face of this world in a blaze of glory, sticking to his guns until the end and saving countless lives in the process?

  “Thank you. For being my best friend all these years, even though I’m such a bother.”

  It still escaped him how Finn could think that of himself for so long, but there was no time to give reassurances anymore. He'd had his chance to say his goodbyes, and wasted it, hoping against hope that it wouldn't be the end. And that regret hurt nearly as much as the loss itself did.

  “Come, let us head back. We should be done for the night,” Damsel said, drawing him out of his thoughts. She walked and motioned for him to follow.

  “Head back?” he questioned, but still followed all the same. “If we're ending the patrol, shouldn't you be heading back home?”

  The knightess was quiet for a moment, then scoffed. “Home,” she repeated in an odd tone. “Hilarious how the meaning of a singular word can change so much because of a single evening, no?”

  “I guess,” he hedged. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Not about it. About something else. Just… I apologize in advance.”

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  Now he was just confused. He kept silent, and eventually they reached an empty, dilapidated garage. And it looked like Damsel was familiar with the place as she pulled down the door behind them and flicked a switch to turn the lights on. This place still had power? He didn't dwell on it when she faced him.

  And promptly removed her helmet.

  “Wait—” he tried, only to be ignored.

  He was treated to the sight of a strawberry blonde teenage girl with soft, cute features. The haggard expression she wore looked out of place on a face like hers. As if she should be anywhere but out on the streets and getting into fights with criminals.

  “Hello Jack,” she said, searching his face plate for a moment before nodding. “It's about time we had this conversation, I think.”

  “What're you talking about?” he asked, as much to give himself time to think as to actually find out the answer. He had known Matilda—not Damsel anymore—by her real name for some time now, but she had never shown him her face. It was a boundary he had respected and never felt the need to push. For her to be revealing herself like this with no buildup, it was weird. And what was that about a conversation?

  “I mean that we should talk about what comes next,” said Matilda, a wistful look finding its way onto her face. “Because we can't continue this any longer. I'm… moving on.”

  “Moving on,” he said dumbly. He didn't like where this was going at all.

  Taking a deep breath, she said, “I've been recommended for a transfer to A10A. I accepted.”

  So Damsel was leaving. She'd be gone and… he would be left on his own again, pretending to be someone he wasn't no matter how hard he wanted to think otherwise.

  Wait, was that why she had chosen to emancipate herself rather than take another legal guardian? Because she knew her stay here would be temporary. She had planned this all along, most likely. She'd known it was never going to be permanent, and never given any indication that it would be, he'd just been deluding himself.

  “I could put in a good word for you,” she continued.

  His mind came to a screeching halt. “What?”

  “It would be favorable if you came to Central with me. I don't know how I could manage it, but there are definitely things I can say to the DHD that would catch their interest. Having you as a colleague would be reassuring. Especially when I don't know what I am going to be facing once I arrive there.”

  Silence came over them as neither of them knew what to say next.

  Matilda broke it again. “My apologies for springing this on you. I am simply- simply a bit scared of leaving. And I also apologize for doing such reckless things like requesting you uproot your life for me. I have barely told you anything about myself, and here I am asking you to do something so drastic.

  “I just had this idea that, with the move coming at the end of the school year, it wouldn't be suspicious if you were one of many people to relocate to another district after Viperia happened,” she clarified, saying the supervillain's name like a curse. “If monetary concerns are the issue, then I can spend one of my annual recommendations to get you a scholarship. Assuming you want to in the first place, of course.”

  Processing her word vomit, Jack sighed and pulled off his helmet, noting the slight creak of the shoulder joints in his armor. Had to fix that. “Matilda,” he began.

  She was staring intently at him, as if trying to dissect him with her large eyes. Their eyes met, and he started pushing out the story he'd been making up in his head.

  “I was already planning to leave the district,” he lied. “If you're worried about not having me around in Central, you shouldn't be. I'll be testing out my new equipment for a while, but I do want to move away sooner rather than later. Gotta get out of here at some point, right?”

  Fuck it. If the alternative was to get left behind, he was prepared to do anything to get Cyrus to secure him a position there. Besides, it wasn't like he didn't have family living there. He could stay with Louis, if need be. What mattered was that he couldn't remain here.

  Matilda's mouth hung open. “Oh. That, ah, that is convenient.”

  “Yup, sure is. Anything else you wanted to say?”

  “I suppose not? That was all, really…”

  “Then I'm off. I wanna do some repairs before I hit the sack tonight. Besides, it's probably good if I make maintenance a part of my lifestyle if I'm going out in armor all the time.”

  She nodded along. “Yes, that makes sense.”

  “Fair warning, though, don't expect me to join up with the government.” And with that, he walked towards the side door.

  “Wait. Do you think it will be easy to get around my squad supervisor? It will be Noor over there, not merely Mountpin.”

  “Nope. But I'm sure you can figure it out.”

  Not giving her more time to reply, he put his helmet back on and left. That done, he consulted the HUD readout that gave him the diagnostics on his drone network, directing them back to their loading stations to make sure they wouldn't be followed.

  Another day of hero work as Gridlock, concluded. And he'd have to go back to the somber, depressing atmosphere of his own house. Mom usually spent the evenings with Emily to check on the woman in the wake of her son's death. Jack… couldn't bring himself to face her again after that first time. It was too much. Despite how horrible it made him feel, he would keep avoiding her if he could help it. What would he say to her? “Sorry I got your son killed, I swear I didn't do it on purpose?”

  No way.

  With both his friends gone, Gridlock didn't have anything left except this. Being a hero. A shadow of a memory that he was trying to make real through blood, sweat and a deluge of tears. He hadn’t even managed to stop Lyra from going off on her own. Who knew what that girl was going to do in the state she was in?

  All he could do was keep at it. It was the one thing that didn't make him feel sick for even existing. Not to mention that the rest was either leaving or already there in Central. Nar, or Aiden Wardell as he had suspected and later found out, had been the first to go. It was good fortune, therefore, that Jack had encountered him in the training facility owned by Cyrus and asked for pointers, once.

  He'd felt the crushing reality afterwards.

  “You're ordinary,” Nar had said. “You lack not only the power-granted benefits of your teammates, but also their natural talent for combat. However, for your purposes, that might actually be a boon. Why? To phrase it in basic terms, if you don't have any immediately apparent strengths, you also won't be wasting potential no matter which specific route to power you choose to take. You are a blank canvas, but that also means that you require high quality paint and an expert painter to turn yourself into something great. And a great brush. Hmm, my metaphor is losing focus, isn't it? Well, I'm not on top of my game, currently. Regardless, you should direct your efforts at refining your foundation whilst you acquire other tools for your arsenal. Remember this: luck is when preparation encounters opportunity. Nothing more.”

  Yeah, Jack could do that.

  If nothing else, Gridlock would do his utmost to be prepared for the times ahead. He knew what it was like when disaster struck if he wasn't.

  So he would do what it took, and maybe, just maybe, he could become someone Finn would've been proud of.

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