Chapter Text
“How long has it been?”
“Five hours, forty-seven minutes, and sixteen— seventeen sec—”
“You don’t have to keep answering, Careless.”
She felt heavy.
“Oh, have I been?”
“How long is it supposed to be?”
“I… I don’t know, Happy.”
The deep weariness in that voice struck at her core. She wanted to comfort him. Him? Yeah, she knew that voice.
She was really tired, though.
“She could stay unconscious for days for all I know. She wasn’t— she was never supposed to hear that plan. We could have found another way.”
No. Stop. She didn’t like the pain in his voice. She wanted to make it stop. Why couldn’t she move? There was something on top of her, but she could tell it wasn’t heavy. Her arms were heavy, that was it. If she could just get those to work, that would be splendid.
“She believed it was her fault. She would not have waited.”
“Ugh, you and your… hero things. Why do you have to give yourselves up so readily?”
She wanted to reach out to him so badly, to comfort him, to show him that she was right here and okay, but she had only managed to get her hand to twitch so far. Why was she so heavy? What had she been doing before this?
Right. Cover the entire planet in a bubble after people had been trying to shatter it all day. No wonder.
She heard a quiet click, like plastic on plastic, that she wouldn’t have paid attention to if it didn’t cause everyone to fall silent. “Something wrong?” came from a different voice. Higher like a child but weirdly snarky. S— yeah. Smart.
“Movement.” That… was Careful. Skies, her mind was waking up painfully slowly.
“Really?” Happy cried, startlingly close. Why’d that surprise her? Ah, her eyes weren’t open. That would do it.
Slowly, much too slowly for her restlessness, colour came into view. They eventually cleared up, gradients becoming hard lines that showed her Happy’s face against her room’s ceiling. “You’re awake!” he cheered.
Wow, she thought her arms were heavy, that was nothing compared to the rest of her. Doctor made a panicked noise as she fumbled around her bedsheets, but Happy was already helping her sit up. “Is the planet alright?” she murmured the minute she figured out how her voice worked again.
“Yeah!” Happy gestured to the window. The sky was a nice blue. Not… not pink! It was the colour it was supposed to be! And it wasn’t stiflingly hot, and she couldn’t feel anyone trying to jab her barriers with something sharp or ram increasing weights against it. “You did it! You saved everyone.”
The hero at her side gently shifted until she leaned against the headboard without his help. Careless was standing at the foot of her bed, a quiet sort of smile on his face. Careful was behind him, on t— on top of her dresser, the puzzle cube she heard set down next to him. He wasn’t smiling, but it didn’t take much to see the tension that surrounded him had lifted. She couldn’t say the same about Doctor, next to her night table with his shoulders so tight she could feel the soreness from here.
Wait, no. That was just fatigue. Had she mentioned how tired she was?
“I need to say sorry. I was being mean to you this morning,” Smart said. His back was facing her for no good reason, and she would have rolled her eyes if she had the energy. “I never meant to push you that far. You really scared us today.”
Oh. Well now she felt bad for not taking him seriously.
“You’re a great superhero,” he finished, turning with a bow. “Please, accept the handsome protagonist’s sincerest apologies.”
She held back a sigh. Smart’s words had really hurt her today, but he knew that, and he was trying to make it better. It wasn’t enough just yet, but she didn’t have the energy to say that. Smart was trying. She could settle for that.
“I ran a diagnostic while you were out,” Doctor began lightly in a way she could just tell was forced. “I found a new substance your body couldn’t process. Did you drink anything new today?”
Sweet frowned as she recalled the two men who had convinced her to buy a too-good-to-be-true ability enhancer.
She was totally scammed.
“Well, it certainly affected you,” Doctor continued when she hummed a yes. “We drained it, and there didn’t seem to be any lasting effects. You should be fine now. Would you like to test it?”
She nodded as an idea struck her. “Smart, could you help?” She had to hide a smile as he stepped closer. He had no time to react before her hand shot out, energy wrapping around him and going up.
“What under— Sweet! Let me out!”
And she did. It was just payback for what Smart said to her that morning. She wasn’t mean. But as she brought her hands together in the habitual dispel motion, there was a tingling spark between her palms, and she panicked. What if Doctor was wrong? Was she not actually fixed? Did she just trap Smart forever because of a joke?
But then he flopped onto the floor, and she couldn’t hold back the laugh that escaped her because it was funny. “Looks like my powers are back to normal!”
Doctor went on to order her to stay in bed for the rest of the day and only get up tomorrow if she really felt better. Even though she was awake now, she still lost a lot of energy that wouldn’t grow back so quickly. The guys trickled out of her room to let her rest. Smart grumbled about how “that’s no way to treat your protagonist,” but they left off with how glad they were that she was okay. Doctor pulled her into a hug, tight, like he still needed some convincing of that, but he left too.
Her hands were still tingling.
A little wary, Sweet pulled off her gloves, inspecting…
What?
On both her palms were little cracks spreading out from the center. Where had these come from? How had Doctor not noticed? Was something wrong with her hands? Was something wrong with her?
She ran her thumb over the centre of the opposite hand. She couldn’t actually feel the dents. The lines were pressed together so tightly they might as well not be there, but they were clearly… there. How did this happen? She could vaguely recall her hands burning as she released all the energy she could— what was it— six hours ago? Like the bubbles needed to physically break through her skin. She ignored it at the time because she had no choice. If she stopped there, the planet would die. She knew it would hurt her— everyone knew that— but she didn’t really have time to dwell on it. It never occurred to her that if she survived, there would be marks.
She needed to see something.
Sweet summoned a bubble. Because this had happened as she was using her powers. She felt it when she tested them on Smart. She needed to know if she could still use them. She was a superhero! What good was she if she couldn’t use her powers anymore? (Her thoughts bounced over to Careless, and she frowned. Okay, no powers wasn’t the end of the world, but still.)
And as a little pink sphere materialised and she made it dance around her room, she could still feel her energy washing over the cracks. Like wind where she knew she wasn’t supposed to feel any. The bubble popped, and the energy returned to her, and that was it. That was normal. That was what always happened. The things on her hands weren’t… stopping her in any way. Her powers were fine. It was fine. She was fine.
She didn’t like them.
It was damage. It was something that wasn’t supposed to be there. It was a physical show that she couldn’t do what had to be done to do her job. It would forever be a reminder of what happened today. She wouldn’t have them if she had the intelligence not to fall for something that was so obviously a scam. She had only herself to blame for the coin-sized spiderweb cracks on her palms.
But no one needed to know that.
Sweet put her gloves back on.