Haven slowly changed into her hero costume, then took a deep breath. Five days after the incident where Prime was arrested, Achilles had declared that the Legion was returning to active duty. They'd rearranged their schedule to make sure someone was on patrol at all times, which meant Achilles was working from ten p.m. to 8 a.m. with a two hour break while Maiden did her stint.
They had to be careful of the military. Already, someone had tried to arrest Achilles last night. Only their Miracles could protect them now. Public opinion was turning against them, and while Haven wanted nothing more than to run away and disappear, she couldn't. Abandoning Achilles here would be a horrible thing to do.
No, she'd have to see this through to the end, however it ended. If she was shot in prison like Hot Rod, so be it. Her life was never worth anything anyway.
She slipped out the door, trying to make sure she didn't have to talk to anyone.
Her plan was foiled when she got to the main street, though. Knight was waiting for her, a pair of hot drinks in hand.
"Coffee?" he asked, offering her one. Haven forced herself to smile as she took it.
Knight followed one step behind her as she walked through the streets. It was ten in the morning, so things were relatively quiet. Kids were in school, and most people were at work. It should have been a relaxing walk.
Except between worrying about what the military would do if they found her and wondering what the heck Knight was doing, Haven's head was buzzing with a thousand useless static channels.
Finally, twenty minutes later, Knight spoke.
"How are you doing with all of this?" His voice was so small she barely heard him, but Haven paused and turned around, raising an eyebrow at him.
"I'm fine," she said. "Achilles is our leader and I defer to his judgement." It seemed like the safe response.
Knight's reaction told her she'd been wrong.
"How are you fine? Prime just got arrested, he's probably dead, the military's out to get us and nobody trusts us anymore! We..."
He crumpled in on himself a bit, then straightened and glared at her.
"We were supposed to be the heroes. And now it feels like we're the villains. I almost killed someone last week. I feel like the whole world is out to get us. And I thought...maybe you'd be the last sensible person in this Legion."
Haven stared at him for a while, trying to figure out what her best play would be. Comfort him and make him an ally who might rat her out to Achilles? Or stick to her perfect girlfriend persona and push him away, while solidifying her position?
As she ran through scenarios, she hit upon something.
She didn't want her position anymore.
"Fine," she said quietly, stepping into an alley and leaning against the wall. She looked down at the coffee she'd barely touched, then splashed a bit of it into the alley.
"Maiden?" Knight asked uncertainly, tentatively following her.
"You want to know how I'm okay? I'm not. I'm a damn good liar is what I am. I'm sick of Achilles and I'm sick of the Legion but I have nowhere else to go so I just keep smiling and pretending I couldn't be happier no matter what happens, no matter what shit we go through. Trust me, Knight, we stopped being the good guys a long time ago. The moment we decided to enable Hot Rod, we were done. And we've kept digging the hole deeper. Expelling Lightning? Letting Jumper and Rose walk away? Stupid ideas. Hindsight is 20/20, but someone should have known better.
"I'm stupid so there's no way I could make any of those kinds of decisions, but even I can see something's wrong. Very wrong. Maybe we should all just turn ourselves in and hope that we don't get killed. But, no. Achilles and the twerp can't see past their noses and are deluded into thinking that we're all the chosen heroes and the world is wrong for trying to correct us. Sometimes wrong is wrong. And..."
She slid down the wall, putting her coffee on the ground and hugging her knees.
Why? Why had she said so many unnecessary things? What was wrong with her? Knight wasn't her friend. No one had ever been her friend. Letting the mask slip was one of the worst things she could have done. Now what would happen to her?
Haven looked up at Knight, who was sliding to sit beside her. He didn't look mad. Just...shocked.
"You'd never think you thought that, y'know," he said quietly. "Not with the way you're always smiling behind Achilles. I'm glad I tried to talk to you. This whole thing is messed up and I don't know how it got that way. I...I never wanted to kill anyone. And now I almost have. Multiple times. My Miracle wasn't supposed to actually hurt anyone. But it does. And I don't know how to handle it."
He hugged his knees even closer to him than Haven was, burying his face in his knees.
"I should have left with Jumper. But I was so stoked to be in something important that I don't think I saw the issues until it was too late. I wanted to be a hero so badly that I let Achilles convince me that we were in the right no matter what. But we aren't. We can still do horrible things. Look at Hot Rod. Look at me. I don't want to be the sort of person who hurts others. Bring them to justice, sure, but there's a difference between capturing and hurting."
Haven stared at the ground as silence fell between them. It was all so screwed up. Where could they go? Achilles wouldn't listen to them.
They were both stuck.
Or were they? Haven frowned in thought. Jumper and Lightning had cut ties with Achilles, but would they be willing to accept her and Knight? Or maybe Louise could help? She'd known James longer than anyone.
"Come on," Haven said, grabbing Knight's hand and pulling him to his feet.
"What?" He stumbled, surprised by her strength, but Haven ignored him and yanked him behind her.
"We have about ninety minutes before you're expected to be back at Legion HQ. Nothing major is happening, and I doubt anything major will happen. That means we can go to an Achilles expert."
"An Achilles expert?" Knight asked, trotting to keep up with her pace.
"Louise. If anyone knows how to handle this shit, I think it might be her."
Haven thought she vaguely remembered where Louise lived. But before that, they needed to change clothes so they didn't draw unwanted attention. Public presence be dammed.
She hurried on towards the old HQ. She probably still had some normal clothes lying around there, and Jo might also be able to help them contemplate how to get out of this mess they'd made.
Right. They weren't alone. They had plenty of potential allies, if they only thought of where to look.
